BORMIO, Italy — They scaled a section of the Stelvio with skis on their feet, skins on their skis, poles in their hands and their backpacks strapped tight. Their lungs raced while their quads screamed. The higher they climbed, the more they disappeared. The snow was relentless in Bormio, coloring the slope a cloudy white, a fitting stage for the first ski mountaineering races in the history of the Olympic Games.
“Takes you back to why we’re all here in the first place,” offered American Anna Gibson, whose third professional ski race happened to come in the Olympics. “We love being out here in the crazy weather, climbing up mountains.”
Indeed, that’s how this whole endeavor started, not for sport or entertainment but necessity. The Italian Alps used to get pummeled with so much snow during the winter that, hundreds of years ago, transportation was rendered impossible. Skis became essential. For traveling from one village to the next. For hunting. For military patrols.
Ski lifts transformed the sport in the early 1900s, but traditionalists in these parts held tight to their brutal, beautiful creation. There was something about ascending the mountain first, before soaring down it, that spoke to them. The first ski mountaineering race was held in Italy in 1933, about four hours west of here. The first world championships didn’t happen until 2002. The first Olympic race started at 9:50 a.m. local time Thursday.
It became the Winter Olympics’ first new sport in 28 years.
France’s Emily Harrop, one of the best skimo racers in the world, recently called it “a suffer-fest.”
“The lungs, the chest, your quads, your calves,” added Australian Lara Hamilton. “You feel everything.”
Spain’s Oriol Cardona Coll competes in the men’s sprint ski mountaineering final. (Fabrice Coffrini / AFP via Getty Images)
They start at the base of the hill, jogging up the slope with their skis on. Attached to the bottom of their skis are skins — essentially strips of grippy carpet — that keep them from sliding backwards. After weaving through a series of diamond obstacles, they reach the first transition zone, where they unclip from their bindings and slide their skis into their backpacks. They climb a series of stairs, using poles to maintain balance. Their skis come back on during the next transition zone, and after one last grueling climb, they reach the top.
They remove the skins, tuck them away, then descend down the mountain. A sprint race is over in around three minutes. They cover the length of nearly eight football fields.
The competitors love the pain and love the views. “For most of the athletes, it’s (about) the mountains,” Harrop said. “And the sprint is an excuse to train out in the mountains. It’s an amazing way to discover your limits.”
Plenty only picked up the sport after unsuccessfully trying to reach the Olympics in something else. Harrop first went for it in Alpine skiing. “When I stopped, it was just game over,” she said. “So to be here on this stage is mad.”
Hamilton first dreamed of competing in the Games in cross-country skiing. Then track and field. Then surfing.
“Failed in three different sports,” she said with a smile. Then, after it was announced that ski mountaineering would make its Olympic debut at Milan Cortina in 2026, she told herself, “Alright, I’ll give it a go.”
“Taught myself how to do it,” Hamilton said. “I’ve only been training with a group for a little over a month.” Thursday was her ninth skimo race.
Oriol Cardona Coll races up the steps during the men’s sprint final. (Sean M. Haffey / Getty Images)
Gibson’s story is similar: a Wyoming kid, she first dreamed of making the Olympics in Alpine skiing. Then she became a decorated distance runner in college. All the while, she resisted the siren song of specialization, refusing to focus on just one sport. It kept her curious, adventurous, unafraid. At the urging of a friend from the trail-running circuit, Cameron Smith, she entered her first professional skimo race last winter. By December, the two were paired in a World Cup mixed relay in Utah with an Olympic berth on the line. All they had to do was beat the Canadian team and they were Italy-bound.
Instead, they won the whole thing.
“We had no idea we were even capable of winning a World Cup,” Gibson said.
The 26-year-old entered Thursday’s sprint heats ranked 18th of 18 qualifiers. She told herself before her heat that if she beat one person, she’d call it a win. Her opening run “felt like a mess.” She botched a transition and slammed a finger on one of her bindings, leaving it bloody under her glove. “Very chaotic,” she called it.
But not only did she beat another competitor, Gibson’s time was quick enough to advance her to the semifinals.
“Nothing Anna does should surprise anyone at this point,” Smith said. The 30-year-old from Illinois, ranked 30th in the world in the sprint event, also made it to the semifinals before being knocked out. They’ll team up for Saturday’s mixed relay event.
Roughly six inches of snow fell from the time the quarterfinals ended to the start of the finals. It made the course slower, the transitions more taxing, the mistakes more punishing. Australian Phillip Bellingham had the race of his life in the quarterfinal, then was so drained he missed the binding on his skis after his run up the stairs in the semifinal, costing him a good chunk of time. He finished 38 seconds behind his heat’s winner.
Marianne Fatton celebrates after winning gold in the women’s sprint final. (Christian Petersen / Getty Images)
In a women’s semifinal, Slovak Marianna Jagercikova got snow stuck in the bindings of her ski boots, causing a sloppy transition, which ended her chances of advancing to the final. The 40-year-old remained undaunted. Her race over, she headed to the bleachers, wanting to join the party.
“I’m gonna go see what’s going on” she said.
Bormio was bumping. Techno music blared. Fans danced and screamed and sang. With no guarantee skimo returns for the 2030 Winter Olympics, they wanted to make a statement: this sport belongs.
“Beautiful place. Beautiful races,” said Norwegian fan Styan Gjøstian, who wore a pair of Viking horns on his head. “It’s kind of fitting the snow won’t stop, you know? Do we think the sun is ever going to come back?”
France’s Emily Harrop was one of the favorites for gold in the women’s sprint. (Fabrice Coffrini / AFP via Getty Images)
The gold medals went home with Switzerland’s Marianne Fatton, who upset Harrop in the women’s race, and Spain’s Oriol Cardona Coll, the reigning men’s world champion. “To win a world championship last year was amazing,” Cardona Coll said. “But to have an Olympic medal? The feeling is multiplied by a lot.”
“Finally,” he said later, “we can play in the major leagues.”
Fatton called the day magic. “It’s history for our sport, and for us athletes. I think the people here enjoyed the show.”
Gibson, likewise, left on a high. Six months ago, she’d never competed in a skimo race, though she’d spent plenty of her childhood finding ways to climb snow-covered mountains. Thursday she competed in the Olympic Games.
“I’ve been doing this sport since I was a little kid, just in a really recreational way,” Gibson said. “It’s something I’ve always loved. Sometimes, it turns out that loving something is enough to get you all the way here.”