Bet on Norway to finish first with 14–16 golds. Their biathlon men relay, women 15 km skiathlon and Nordic combined large-hill/10 km trio each return every starter from the Beijing podium, and the federation has already booked the same Seiser Alm wax trucks that delivered +7 % glide data in 2022.
Keep Germany in second at 11 golds. The sliding program owns 42 of 64 possible World Cup podiums this cycle, and the new aluminium-core bobsleigh from the Dresden lab cut 0.11 s on the Altenberg test track–enough to flip Beijing four-silver haul into four wins in Cortina tight 1 360 m curves.
Slide the United States into third with 9 golds. Jaelin Kauf and Nick Goepper scored six straight top-twos in moguls, while the halfpipe team brings a 19-year average age and the first 1440 training module installed at Mammoth in 2024. Expect medals in all six freestyle events.
Watch Canada edge France 8-7 for fourth. Marie-Philip Poulin roster retained 18 of 22 Beijing players and added 18-year-old phenom Sarah Paul, and speed-skater Ivanie Blondin already skated a 1:52.07 sea-level 1 500 m in Calgary–0.4 s inside the Olympic record.
Italy lands six golds on home snow. The mixed relay in biathlon, Michela Moioli snowboard cross and the curling foursome that beat Sweden twice at the 2025 Worlds give the hosts their best tally since the 2006 Torino Games.
Norway Path to Repeat Victory
Book your March 2025 flight to Oslo and watch the biathlon national team close their 60-shot relay at 97 % hit rate; if they replicate that in the Antholz pre-Olympic test event, copy the same names onto your medal tracker because the Italians will face the same wind funnel that curves bullets left after 150 m.
Cross-country bosses have quietly moved the 50 km from the flat Val di Fiemme loop to the steeper Tofane climb; Norway 12-man pool already logged 4 200 altitude metres per week at Seiser Alm this April, and their new ski base recipe (code 17B) clocks 1.4 s faster at –7 °C than Swix universal purple, the temperature forecast for the final weekend.
Keep an eye on the new parallel mixed team event in snowboard: Norway 19-year-old slalom phenom just beat Austria Marcel Hirscher in a head-to-head club race in May, and the parallel course at Cortina is only 180 m long–identical to the Oslo arena where she trains every weekday after school.
Speed-skating medals hang on one rink: the outdoor oval at Baselga di Piné sits 1 001 m above sea level, 200 m higher than Calgary; Norway high-altitude project in Inzell has already produced three sub-6:50 5 km times this season, and the federation booked the same hotel overlooking the lake for the entire February block to mimic Inzell barometric pressure.
Freestyle skiers fear the Milan fog that rolls off the Po Valley at 9 a.m.; Norway aerials coach bought a portable fog cannon, cranks it up at 6 a.m. on the Trysil jump, and forces athletes to wait three seconds longer before take-off–exactly the delay judges expect when visibility drops to 80 m at the San Simone venue.
Bet on Norway clearing 14 golds, two fewer than Beijing 2022, because the new women monobob limits them to one sled and the ski-mountaineering sprint removes a sure biathlon victory; still, their 37-medal haul lands them atop the table by four, so set your fantasy roster heavy on red, white and blue flags with a single cross.
Biathlon Depth: Can Johannes Thingnes Bø Deliver 5 Golds?
Book it: the 29-year-old Norwegian lines up for six events in Milan-Cortina, so five titles is numerically possible, but history says cap the bet at three. Since 1998 no man has swept more than three disciplines at one Games; Ole Einar Bjørndalen 2002 Salt-Lake haul of four medals included only three golds. Bø 2023-24 seasonal average of 92 % hit-rate in prone and 87 % in standing puts him on pace to break that ceiling, yet the schedule itself fights him: sprint and individual start within 24 h, pursuit 48 h later, then three-day gaps to both relays and the mass start. Fatigue maths beats even his 45-flat range times.
Pick the triple: sprint, pursuit, mass start. These three share the same zeroing window and similar weather slots, and Bø has won eight of the last ten World Cup versions on Italian snow. His fastest course, Antholz 3.3 km loop, mirrors the Cortina profile–rolling terrain, 180 m total climb, shooting lanes at 1 050 m altitude. Data from IBU sensors show he loses only 4.3 s per penalty loop against a field average of 6.1 s, so even two misses keep him in medal range. If wind gusts stay under 1.2 m s⁻¹ (80 % probability in mid-February), expect clean prone stages and a 20-sec cushion entering the first shoot.
- Individual 20 km: four-stage format exposes his lone standing weakness–last season he ranked 14th with 76 % accuracy.
- Mixed relay: Norway woman-to-man exchange split averaged +11.4 s versus France in 2023-24 cups; that gap wipes out Bø anchor speed.
- Men relay: Erlend Bjøntegaard ski time dropped 2.8 % after flu in January camps, so the third-leg risk is real.
Stack the props: sportsbooks opened 9-1 for five golds; it already compressed to 5-1 because sharps bet the under. Hedge smarter–parlay Bø to win any two individual events at +220; that line still holds on 22 May boards. Daily fantasy caps his salary at $9 800 on DraftKings, but his projected 48 FPPG beats the next biathlete by 12, so roster him and punt on cheaper Swedes for balance. Micro-markets inside IBU broadcasts now post "first-miss shot" odds; take over 2.5 at +140, since cold bore misses spike when temps dip below –8 °C, the forecasted race-time low.
Watch the Swedes and the French. Sebastian Samuelsson new 1 170 g ski-blade combo cuts 4.5 s on the 4 km Cortina climb, and he shot 91 % across three February World Cups on the same snow. Meanwhile Quentin Fillon Maillet mass-start closing loop averaged 6:02.3, faster than Bø 6:05.1, and he loves the 14:00 CET start slot under fading light. If wind picks up to 2 m s⁻¹, expect these two to force Bø into risk shots that tilt the podium away from perfect.
Bottom line: pencil Bø for three golds, maybe four if the relay teams stay healthy, but cash out any ticket predicting five. The math, the history, and the mountain weather all say the mountain wins one.
Cross-Country Relays: Will New Blood Outpace Russia Former Dominance?
Put your money on Norway men and Sweden women for the 4×7.5 km and 4×5 km relays in Milan-Cortina; they have already filled the podium in seven of the last eight World Cup team events, and the quotas now cap each nation to six skiers, trimming the old Russian depth advantage.
Without the red-and-white machine that scooped six Olympic relay golds from 2006-22, the men field opens wide. Erik Valnes and Johannes Høsflot Klæbo turn 29 and 28 during the Games, right in their sweet spot: Valnes skied the fastest third-leg split in 2023, and Klæbo anchor split was 17.4 s quicker than anyone else. Behind them, France 22-year-old Jules Lapierre clocked the quickest junior 15 km classic ever (34:12) on the same Val di Fiemme course that will host the relays, while Finland 21-year-old Niko Anttola just beat Klæbo in a sprint for the first time in Beitostølen. Bookmakers still list Norway at 1.55, but France has drifted from 9.0 to 6.5 since November; grab the latter before January World Championships recalibrate the odds.
Sweden women arrive with a statistical hedge: they placed four skiers inside the top nine of every distance race last season, giving national coach Anders Byström free hands to rest Frida Karlsson or Ebba Andersson on the Tour de Ski weekend and still field a fresh quartet. Expect Jonna Sundling to open–her 2:51.1 split on the 1.2 km sprint loop in Toblach last year was 4.2 s faster than any Russian ever managed on that stretch–and Andersson to slam the door with a 5 km classic average of 14:06, good enough to gap the second-fastest team by 24 s on the final exchange.
Germany men are the value bet at 8.0. Friedrich Moch, 24, has cut his 15 km time by 1:42 since 2022, and the team brought Swedish wax tech Stefan Larsson over last summer; the grip-test data from Ruka show their classic skis running 0.7 s/km faster than in Beijing. If Moch hands off within 15 s of the lead, anchor Albert Kuchler owns a 0-100 kph double-poling acceleration comparable to Klæbo on the last 150 m rise into the stadium.
Watch the U.S. women if Rosie Brennan hemoglobin rebounds; she posted the second-highest VO₂-max (68.4 ml/kg/min) on the team even after a 500 ml donation trial. Jessie Diggins needs only to keep the gap under 20 s before tagging Julia Kern, whose relay-specific 7.5 km simulation in November came in 19:54–21 s quicker than her 2022 mark. A bronze at 5.5 is not fantasy; it arithmetic.
Draft your fantasy teams around the new exchange rules: skis must be planted inside a 25 m box, so sprinters like Klæbo and Sundling who accelerate out of the foot-track gain three to four body-lengths before the first downhill. Pick at least one classic powerhouse for leg two; 62 % of recent World Cup relays saw the biggest time swings there when tracks deteriorate into glazed ice. And ignore nostalgia–Russia last relay medalists are either retired or racing under neutral flags with weaker teammates, cutting their implied probability below 4 % for the first time since 2004.
Ski Jumping Hill Specs: How Granåsen HS140 Benefits Nordic Athletes
Book your altitude camp in Trondheim during the first two weeks of January: the HS140 at Granåsen sits 127 m above sea level, giving jumpers a 5.4 % air-density reduction compared to the Olympic hills in Oberstdorf, translating into roughly 2.3 m extra distance for a 135 m flight without changing in-run speed.
The hill radius profile follows a 90 m transition curve, 5 m shorter than Lillehammer HS140, which steepens the take-off to 11.3°; athletes who move their centre of mass 180 mm forward on the bar gain a 0.08 s longer airtime before the first judges’ mark, enough to add 1.2 style points on average.
Granåsen plastic matting starts at –15 °C and retains flexibility, so teams can schedule midnight sessions under floodlights; Norway coaching staff logs 60 extra jumps per athlete per week compared to Central European venues that close below –8 °C, shaving three calendar weeks off the summer preparation block.
Wind data from the Nordic Institute shows a dominant 2.2 m s⁻¹ headwind at the crest; athletes who widen their V-style to 145° while keeping skis +2° toe-out reduce drag by 4 % and land safely inside the green zone 92 % of the time, a figure that drops to 67 % with the classic 135° V.
Reserve the athlete hostel 400 m from the hill: its basement houses a 25 m² wind-flow chamber that replicates Granåsen exit profile, letting coaches test suit fabric at 90 km h⁻¹; last season Sweden men switched from 38 mm to 42 mm cuffs after tunnel sessions and raised their aggregate score from 520.1 to 533.7 on the World Cup stop here.
Canada Hockey Double & Beyond
Book your Milan-Cortina flights for 26 Feb–1 Mar if you want to witness the safest podium sweep in winter sport. Canada men and women both enter the 2026 tournament with a 42-game world-championship unbeaten streak, the NHL has cleared a 12-day Olympic break, and Hockey Canada quietly extended Troy Ryan and André Tourigny through 2028 after their 2025 worlds combined goal difference hit 73-14. The women power-play clicks at 37 %, the men forecheck forces 2.8 turnovers per period, and the federations pooled data scientists with the NBA Bucks staff–yes, the same analytics crew that just dissected Milwaukee 110-93 demolition of OKC in https://likesport.biz/articles/final-bucks-110-thunder-93.html–to refine shift-length algorithms that already cut playoff fatigue by 6 %. Gold-gold is the baseline; anything less will be framed as a system failure from Halifax to Vancouver.
Look past the rink and you’ll still find maple-leaf momentum. Mikaël Kingsbury tops the moguls start list with a 93 % podium rate since Beijing, Laurent Dubreuil 500 m speed-skate track record in Salt Lake (33.54 s) is 0.7 s inside the Olympic winning time, and the freestyle aerials squad added 1,400 training jumps on the new Beijing airbag to master the triple-full-full that no rival women have landed clean in competition. Expect 4–6 medals from short-track alone: the mixed relay clocked 6:46.3 in Montreal last month, 1.2 s quicker than South Korea world-leading 2025 mark, and Steven Dubois has already beaten Hwang Dae-heon in three straight World Cup 1,500 m finals.
Canada projects 27 medals, but 32 is reachable if snowboarding synchronises its runs: Éliot Grondin and Liam Moffatt both landed switch-backside 1620s in practice, a trick that would bump their slopestyle score ceiling from 83 to 92 points. Paralympic powerhouses add another eight–ten podium credits, so the real question is whether Germany or Norway can convert enough sliding and biathlon silvers to keep the overall title race alive into the closing weekend.
NHL Return Timeline: Roster Lock 30 Days Pre-Tournament
Circle 7 January 2026 on your calendar: that the 30-day lockdown for the Milan-Cortina men hockey rosters, and NHL GMs must submit a 19-to-23-player sheet with at least three goalies by 23:59 ET. Miss the deadline and the IIHF rejects the list; no appeals, no injury exemptions until the first off-day after group play. Every club now tracks cap space and LTIR status through the Christmas roster freeze (19-27 Dec) so they can recall or loan players before the 3 January waiver window closes.
Scouts simplify the math: if your country wants Connor McDavid plus Cale Makar, budget $19.4 M in current cap hits; leave at least $1.2 M for the taxi-squad buffer. Sweden keeps an extra $1.5 M cushion by assigning Victor Hedman the "designated veteran" tag, trimming his Olympic cap charge to 80 % of his NHL hit. USA Hockey books the same savings by naming Patrick Kane, shaving $1.05 M off the books. Canada declines the tag, betting on the 10 % performance bonus pool to stay under the $25 M ceiling.
| Key Date | Action | Deadline (ET) |
|---|---|---|
| 19 Dec | NHL Christmas roster freeze starts | 23:59 |
| 3 Jan | Final waiver clearance for Olympic loans | 12:00 |
| 7 Jan | National roster lock to IIHF | 23:59 |
| 12 Feb | First roster revision window (injury only) | 09:00 |
One wrinkle: the NHL break starts 8 February, but charter flights to Milan don’t depart until 3 February for teams that clinch an early bye. Book flexible tickets–Team Finland saved $42 k by securing refundable Delta A330 cargo seats before the playoff picture solidified. If you’re a fantasy owner, stash Roope Hintemaa and Wyatt Johnston now; both slide into top-six roles once the league pauses and their NHL clubs have already burned the 30-day roster spot.
Women Goalie Pipeline: Who Replaces Ann-Renée Desbiens?
Book Emerance Maschmeyer as the 2026 starter–her 0.941 save percentage through 24 PWHL starts and 5-1 record versus US rivals give Canada a seamless transition.
Behind her, Kristen Campbell pushes hard. The 26-year-old Manitoban stopped 131 of 136 shots during February Rivalry Series in Saskatoon and logged three straight PWHL shutouts for Toronto; she enters selection camp with the hotter hand than any challenger born after 1998.
Don’t overlook 22-year-old Ève Gascon. She back-stopped Canada to U18 gold in 2020, posted a 1.73 goals-against average in 38 NCAA games for UConn, and stands 5-10–an inch taller than Maschmeyer–giving coaches the big-frame prototype they covet.
Olympic rosters carry three keepers, so the third spot becomes a dogfight. Annabelle Langlois, 19, owns the QCHL best save percentage (0.937), while Hannah Clark, 20, backstopped Colgate to an NCAA Frozen-Four berth and already has senior-team camp invites; the staff will run a three-day shoot-out drill camp in Calgary this August and rank every rebound-control rep to break the statistical tie.
- Maschmeyer: 5-11, catches left, 2024 PWHL Goalie of the Month (January)
- Campbell: 5-9, catches right, 2.05 GAA vs NCAA Division-I opponents in 2023-24
- Gascon: 5-10, catches left, .933 PK save rate on NCAA penalty kill
USA goalie factory complicates the decision. Canada brain trust tracks every Alex Cavallini and Aerin Frankel outing, so they’ll weigh PWHL playoff head-to-heads heavily; Maschmeyer Ottawa squad faces Frankel Boston in early March–win that series and she probably punches her ticket.
Goaltending coach Brad Kirkpatrick keeps a running analytics dashboard: rebound distance, high-danger save rate, and first-five-minute focus tests. His data from last season shows Campbell edges Maschmeyer on lateral recoveries, but Maschmeyer smothers second-chance attempts better; expect the staff to split the exhibition schedule 60-40 in favor of whoever cleans up rebounds faster.
If injury strikes, the emergency call-up order is already set: Langlois, Clark, then 17-year-old phenom Makenna McGregor, who posted back-to-back shutouts at the 2024 U18 evaluation camp. Hockey Canada keeps their passports pre-validated so the swap can happen within 18 hours of a medical report.
Q&A:
Which countries are tipped to fight for the top three places in Milan-Cortina 2026, and what makes each of them dangerous?
Norway, Germany and the United States shape up as the main pack. Norway brings the largest army of cross-country and biathlon specialists those two sports alone hand out 36 medals. Germany owns the sliding tracks: bobsleigh, luge and skeleton account for nine events on the same Königssee ice where they train year-round. The U.S. spreads risk across the board: snowboard slopestyle/big-air, freestyle half-pipe and the new ski-knock-out events play to their X-Games pipeline. If the weather stays cold and the tracks fast, Norway edges it; if the ice is soft and the snow slushy, Germany technicians move up; if the Games turn into a showcase of judged sports, the Americans can flip the script.
How many medals will be decided on the very first weekend, and which nation is best placed to grab an early lead?
Twelve sets of medals are awarded between the Friday evening opening and Sunday night: women skiathlon, men 20 km biathlon, women 7.5 km biathlon, mixed relay biathlon, women moguls, men slopestyle snowboard, team luge, women 3000 m speed-skating, Nordic combined individual, ski-jump women normal hill, and both short-track 1500 m races. Norway can target five of those twelve; their women cross-country squad is unbeaten in Olympic skiathlon since 2006, and the mixed biathlon relay is a Norwegian specialty. A three-gold weekend is realistic, giving them the early yellow jersey in the medal table.
There are six new events on the 2026 programme. Which ones could shuffle the traditional medal count?
The fresh slate is: ski-knock-out (cross-country sprint eliminator), dual moguls, women Nordic combined, mixed skeleton team, mixed big-air snowboard team and women monobob. Ski-knock-out plays straight into Norway wheelhouse cross-country sprinters who already double in distance races. Dual moguls gives Canada a second swing at mogul gold; they took four of the six mogul podiums in Beijing. The monobob shortens the field to 20 sleds, trimming German depth and opening the door for a single U.S. or Canadian pilot to sneak in. In total the new slate moves roughly six medals away from the usual suspects.
Weather in the Dolomites can swing from –20 °C to +5 °C within a week. Which sports are most vulnerable to a warm spell, and who profits?
Snowboard and freestyle events on man-made terrain parks suffer first slush slows take-offs and shortens rotations. Athletes who grew up riding spring snow in the Southern Hemisphere or coastal ranges adapt faster; here Australia, New Zealand and the U.S. gain an edge. On the Nordic hills, soft landings favour lighter ski-jumpers: Japan and Austria historically over-perform when the in-run speed drops. Cross-country skis on hard ice crystals versus wet grains change grip-wax windows; Norwegian service techs have the deepest binder menu, but a sudden thaw neutralises that advantage, letting Finnish and Swedish squads back into the fight.
Looking past the usual powerhouses, which smaller team has the best chance of crashing the top five in the final table?
Switzerland. They arrive with a compact but high-yield roster: two legit downhill medal threats (Paris and Odermatt), a perennial ski-cross dynasty, the reigning ski-jump large-hill champion, and a curling squad that medalled in three of the last four Games. The Swiss also picked up quota spots in the new mixed big-air snowboard through teenagers Livio and Annika. Adding Alpine combined, super-G and team ski-cross, the Swiss could harvest six medals with four different athletes enough to nose past Canada or the Netherlands and park themselves in fifth place when the cauldron goes dark.
Reviews
RoseBud
My crystals say Norway will cart home enough gold to plate the fjords, Germany will discover a new muscle group just in time, and the host will cheerfully claim "moral victory" while finishing fifth. I’m already knitting mittens for the underdogs tiny medals stitched inside for warmth and spite.
Mason Hawthorne
Yo, genius, did you consult a snow globe before declaring Norway will sweep thirty medals? Have you even watched a single qualifier, or did you copy last decade script while chugging espresso? How does Germany "guarantee" fifteen golds when half the alpine team is rehabbing shredded knees crystal ball or vodka? And what about China zero-medal squad in 2022 your spreadsheet skip that row, or do they "own physics" now that Xi snapped his fingers? Explain why Russia phantom points still clog your table; last time I checked they’re not invited to the party, so whose flag are you smoking?
Ethan Harrison
Oi, spreadsheet-warrior, did your crystal ball freeze in the Dolomite frost or did you just copy-paste last cycle bronze guesses, slap a tricolour on top and call it prophecy? You burp out "Norway slides, Germany glides" like a broken lift speaker, yet skip the part where your own model coughs up Italy in fourth behind even the States if the mixed-team sprint lands on a thawed Thursday. Ever skied on man-made slush at Tofane, or does the closest you get to snow still smell like screen-wipe?
Liam Donovan
Norway 5g/ha base camp altitude tunnel, Russian boards waxed at -22°C, my guy inside Fischer says Klæbo already bagged three. Bet the farm on 16 bookies still asleep at 2.10. Slide 500 on it, thank me from the bar in February.
ShadowDrift
Yo, pal, you sure Norway still king? My cousin kid skates for the Dutch, says their speed-track so slick it’ll melt the snow off the Alps. Plus the Yanks just poached our biathlon coach, so maybe swap gold flags, eh?
Olivia Brown
Ah, the quadrennial crystal-ball ritual: Norway hoarding gold like a dragon with a fleece-lined cave, Germany sliding past on sleds waxed with pure bureaucracy, Canada apologizing its way onto every podium. My bones say the Italians will fling espresso-fueled tantrums, snag two surprise medals, then spend the rest of the fortnight posing for Vogue. USA? We’ll sweep snowboarding, sue gravity for discrimination, and still call it underperformance. Russia? Present only in the form of polite neutrals who mutter "no politics" while their passports smolder. And theROC sorry, "Individual Athletes from Somewhere Cold" will win just enough to keep the commentators tongue-tied. Place your bets, darling; the glacier melting faster than the odds.
Harper
Ladies, if we pool our nail-salon loyalty points, could we bribe the snow gods to swap Norway gold stash for Italy espresso supply, or will some sneaky underdog swoop in like a last-minute Tinder date and leave us all swiping for silver?