Games Briefing 🏅 | This is The Athletic’s daily newsletter for the Milan Cortina Olympics. Sign up here to receive the Games Briefing directly in your inbox.
MILAN — Buonasera from Zack and me now that we’ve linked up in Italy, and a hearty good morning, afternoon or evening depending on where you are in the world. Here’s what we’re thinking about with the Olympic opening ceremony just three days away:
🤕 Lindsey Vonn is hurt but plans to race
🍿 What are you most looking forward to?
🔍 A mini trivia break
🎛️ How our coverage is stacking up
Let’s start with an update on Vonn.
Still Skiing: Vonn to compete with torn ACL
The MRI results are back, and they’re not good for Vonn, the American skiing star who has been planning to race at 41. Vonn told reporters Tuesday afternoon in Cortina d’Ampezzo that she tore the ACL in her left knee and has to rethink her training and race schedule for the Olympics.
“My intention is to race everything,” and to even finish the World Cup season if possible, she said. But she quickly added: “I can’t tell you that until I have a downhill training run and I see how I feel. And you know, normally, in situations like this, your knee is good until it’s not. I don’t know when there will be a point where it’s not OK anymore.” The first training run is scheduled for Thursday.
While talking about her approach, Vonn oscillated between adjectives like “strategic,” “systematic” and “smart” and other decidedly less conservative descriptions, like “daredevil.”
“I like risk. I like going fast,” she said.
Vonn said she is not feeling pain as she practices and simply needs to see how her knee will feel under the stress of a race. Her other knee was replaced in 2024, prompting her return to the sport from a lengthy absence because of injury.
“I’m not letting this slip through my fingers. I’m gonna do it, end of story,” she said.
“I’m standing tall, and I’m going to do my best, and whatever the result is, that’s what it is. But never say I didn’t try.”
It’s Your World: Which sports are you most excited about?
Speed sports or judged contests? Ice or snow? Strategy and cunning or physicality and grace?
The Winter Games offer a little something for everyone in its program, and it rewards every kind of viewing tendency, too. You can burrow in for as much hockey or curling as you could ever ask for in a concentrated span. You can stumble onto sports you don’t normally follow and quickly get drawn into their most dramatic moments of tension and excitement.
Given all that, we just want to directly ask, through this brief survey: What are you looking forward to watching during these Olympics and why? We believe that we will find your answers illuminating and helpful as we shape this newsletter for you. If you’re up for it, we’d even like to share some of your responses (details about that are part of the survey).
Of course, we’ll be all over Italy — indeed, much of our staff is in various stages of transit and it’s fun to see the excitement brewing. Together, we’ll be proud to highlight things that we think will resonate for you. But the beauty of the Olympics is that you can get drawn in from so many entry points and it’s very likely a connection you don’t anticipate that makes that happen. We’d love to know how and why that might ring true for you.
Some things to consider as you answer:
🇨🇦 Joe Sakic was the hero for the Canadian men’s team in the 2002 Salt Lake City Games, and as NHL players prepare for their first Olympic appearances in 12 years, he tells our Pierre LeBrun that his gold holds a distinctive place in his trove of hockey memories because of the tension, pressure and expectations that come with representing Canada. “I’m still so proud that I was able to go to the Olympic Games and represent my country. There’s something different about the Olympics compared to any other event.”
⛷️ Jessie Diggins, on her 16th and final season before a planned retirement, says she began contemplating the end of her career in 2018, after a magical night at the Pyeongchang Games in which she finished a sprint to give the United States its first cross country gold medal in four decades, in team sprint. Now, she says, “I’m ready in my heart and my soul.”
📺 Mike Tirico, who even with wide recognition is about to reach another realm of TV host after he voices Sunday’s Super Bowl and the Olympics for NBC, says he could not have imagined being a proper and concurrent replacement for both Bob Costas and Al Michaels. “The timings of next chapters really synced,” he said. As a result, your memories of whatever big things happen in the next couple weeks will probably come fresh with a Tirico soundtrack.
We’d also love your direct feedback. If you’d like to reach out, my email is ogarcia@theathletic.com, Zack’s is zpierce@theathletic.com and Shelby Blackley, who also plans to be part of this newsletter while watching from Toronto, can be reached at shelby@theathletic.com.
Trivia: Games, games and more games!
One thing to know about Zack and me is that we are big fans of games. Yes, like Connections: Sports Edition and our weekly sports news quiz (hello, Mark Cooper and Bob Harkins!). But we also like other kinds of brain ticklers, like those offered by our friends who write The New York Times’ Gameplay newsletter. (I’ll be spending some scattered quiet moments in Milan with Clues By Sam or a relatively casual variant sudoku.)
So if you’ll indulge us, we’d like to give you mini games here once in a while, too. We’ll start off with a mildly difficult trivia question:
- There are three American athletes set to compete at the Milan Cortina Games who have previously won at least two gold medals each. Who are they?
See the answer at the bottom.
Live and Direct: An exciting week of sports ahead
Our live coverage is sure to be one of the most ambitious elements of our reporting, helping you keep up with big news and key events with the timeliness you’ve come to expect from us. Michael Dominski and Lukas Weese will be here with me in Milan, and having seen them both up close on other assignments, I’m excited to see what they will do with such a rich slate at the Winter Games.
Our colleague Daniel Shirley has a great rundown of what to expect from our live coverage this week. A big moment, certainly, will be the opening ceremony on Friday. But we’ll also have a women’s hockey doubleheader on Thursday featuring the powerhouse teams from Canada and the United States in their first games. And we’ll begin our broad live coverage of the Games on Wednesday, with daily live coverage of all the key Olympic news across Italy.
All this in a week where we’re also aggressively covering Premier League action, the NBA trade deadline and, yes indeed, the Super Bowl.
On the Scene: Optical illusion?
Cameron Spencer / Getty Images
A quick confession: At first I thought the bottom portion of this photo was some blank space that needed to be cropped. Let’s blame that silliness on a late night transatlantic flight. Still, you have to admit that that snow is jarringly pristine.
Credit for the wisps of powder go to Laura Zaveska of Czechia, who was training for the Big Air snowboard competition in Livigno.
Bookmark this: 🏅 Medal tracker
Yesterday we highlighted a few things to consider as a U.S. television viewer.
Today we’re giving you a proper resource you’ll want to turn to again and again throughout the Games: a live medal table that tallies each gold, silver and bronze as the results roll in.
Just 116 medal events to go! We’re glad that you’re here with us from the start.
Trivia answer: Kaillie Humphries (bobsledding) has three golds while Mikaela Shiffrin (Alpine skiing) and Chloe Kim (snowboarding) have two each. In a twist, Humphries won two of her golds for Canada before switching to the United States to win her third!
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