This is part of Slate’s 2026 Olympics coverage. Read more here.
Watch out, biathlon! Eat my shorts, big air! Get bent, Nordic combined! There’s a new skiing-centric Winter Olympics sport in town, and it’s awesomely outrageous in ways that you old-timers just can’t match. So you think downhill skiing is where it’s at? OK, boomer. What about a sport that features downhill skiing and uphill skiing? That’s right: Prepare to get rizzed up by the lit new Olympic sport known as ski mountaineering—but the cool kids just call it skimo.
Skimo! Skimo! Skimo!
I wish I could tell you that I didn’t write that introduction, but I did. All we can do is move forward together.
What is ski mountaineering, and how did it get into the Olympics?
According to this entertainingly melodramatic sizzle reel from the International Ski Mountaineering Federation—posted to YouTube, ominously, mere days before COVID-19 shut down the world in 2020—ski mountaineering is sort of like if the movie Where Eagles Dare were a competitive sport.
Per my not-at-all-dated Where Eagles Dare reference, the sport has its roots in Alpine military patrolling. Skimo, which is also known as “rando racing”—
I’m sorry, what?
The term rando racing derives from the French word randonnée, a style of skiing otherwise known as Alpine touring.
So rando racing has nothing to do with “the Amazing Rando,” as referenced in Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie?
I’m sorry, what?
Never mind.
As I was saying,skimo, which is also known as rando racing, can also trace its origins in part to the pastime of mountain hiking and the ski-area tradition of bootpacking. As that rousing video from the International Ski Mountaineering Federation makes clear, skimo is a sport that celebrates Alpinism in its totality and harks back to a day when the ski lift was hardly a gleam in Robert Winterhalder’s eye.
Who is Robert Winterhalder?
He invented the first rudimentary ski lift, but his life story is otherwise non-pertinent to the topic of skimo.
Stop wasting my time!
In skimo, competitors begin at the base of a slope and sort of half run, half ski their way up to a designated point. They do this while wearing short, thin skis that have been outfitted with special “skins” on their undersides. The types of skins vary according to the terrain; a steeper slope will call for a skin that gives a better grip, while a gentler slope might call for a skin that maximizes glide.
So these skins are basically like condoms for your skis?
What? No. They’re skins. They’re, I don’t know, more like little Swiffer pads for your skis.
Who invented the Swiffer pad?
Well, it wasn’t Robert Winterhalder, I can tell you that much. And now you’re wasting my time! Back to skimo: In the Olympic skimo sprint competition, athletes ski/sprint up a designated course on a steep hill. Then, at a designated point, they stop, take offtheir skis, strap them to their backs, and run up a stairlike section of the course in their ski boots.
Wait, they run?
Oh my, yes. It’s a race, after all, and skimo athletes are booking it through the course as fast as they can go. The individual “sprint” version of the sport, which is the one that’s been added to the Olympic program, takes about three minutes from beginning to end.
Sounds exhausting.
I’m told that it is.
Back to this steplike portion of the course.
Well, once that’s completed, the skimo sprinters put their skis back on and rush back uphill until they reach the summit. Then, they rip off their skins, adjust their ski bindings, and race downhill on their little skinny skis until they reach the finish line. Assuming they made it out of their heat, they proceed to do it all again, until eventually we end up with some medalists.
Who are some of the top medal contenders in the skimo sprint event?
Jon Kistler of Switzerland is the top-ranked male sprinter in the skimo World Cup standings; according to his personal website, he also studies mechanical engineering at a university in Zurich, so maybe he could tell you who invented the Swiffer pad. When I first drafted this piece, Kistler had 1,077 followers on Instagram, but in the hours since he’s gained six—that’s right, six!—and now sits at 1,083. Look out, Ilia Malinin!
Tied for second place in the World Cup rankings are France’s Thibault Anselmet, who is also an amateur wildlife photographer, and Spain’s Oriol Cardona Coll, whose photo on the official Olympics website makes him look pretty “coll,” indeed.
The three top-ranked women are France’s Margot Ravinel, who competed in skimo at the 2020 Winter Youth Olympics, which is apparently an event that exists; Italy’s Giulia Murada, daughter of renowned Italian ski mountaineer Ivan Murada; and France’s Emily Harrop, who claims she was “born with bindings on my feet and poles in my hands,” which sounds very painful for her poor mother!
Since it’s skimo’s debut in the Winter Games, though, it’s hard to handicap the race, since the Olympics bring a whole slew of unexpected pressures that can affect performance. It’s anyone’s race—and don’t count out the two Americans!
Really?
No, it’s probably safe to count them out. Five-time North American skimo champion Cameron Smith is ranked pretty low in the World Cup standings, though it’s hard to tell whether that’s because North American skimo pales in comparison to European skimo or because he just doesn’t compete in many World Cup events. He did film a very helpful video about skimo, however, so I would personally like to give him a gold medal in the field of “explaining how this weird sport works.” His female counterpart, Anna Gibson, meanwhile, is incredibly new to the sport, having competed in only one other international skimo event in her entire life: the World Cup season opener in December 2025.
You’ve got to be kidding me.
I am not. If you had been in Utah in December and you had signed up for the race, you maybe could have made it to the Olympics. That said, Gibson did win the World Cup mixed relay race she entered with Smith as her partner, so maybe she, too, came out of the womb wearing skis and holding poles.
Is skimo mixed relay an Olympic event as well?
Yes, it is. In the mixed relay, the male and female competitors each race through the course twice, switching off each time. Who knows? Maybe Smith and Gibson will once again catch lightning in a bottle.
Do you really think they will?
No.
Are there rules to this alleged sport, and are there penalties for breaking those rules?
There certainly are. Incorrect fastening of skis on the backpack will earn you a three-second penalty, as will incorrect stowage of the skins.
What counts as correct fastening of skis on the backpack?
As per ISMF rules, skis “must be carried on the backpack using two (2) fastening straps designed for this purpose (skis cannot be carried in shoulder straps and must remain fastened to the backpack of the athlete). In the event that the skis or one ski detach from the backpack, the athlete must stop to reattach the skis.”
And correct stowage of the skins?
“Skins must be stowed securely inside the athlete’s race suit or backpack while they are not in use on skis or during manipulation.”
This sounds like a very tidy sport.
I concur. Well, we’ve all learned a lot about skimo here today, especially me. Enjoy this brand-new Olympic sport, everyone!
Wait, you never fully answered my very first question: How did skimo make it into the Olympics?
Honestly, I think it’s because Italy—the host country of the Milan Cortina Games—is really good at skimo. The Milan Cortina organizing committee first proposed skimo’s addition, and I think the International Olympic Committee was basically like, Sure, OK, we’ll throw you a bone here.
How many Instagram followers does Jon Kistler have … right now?
Still 1,083.