The quadrennial competition returns this month, as the 2026 Winter Olympics lodge in northern Italy. The Milan Cortina Games begin Wednesday, Feb. 4 with training and preliminary heats, pick up in full at Friday’s opening ceremony, then run through the third week of February. Ninety-three countries are represented across 16 sports. Here’s how interested viewers can navigate schedules, time zones and tape delays.
How to watch the 2026 Winter Olympics (U.S. audience)
- Host: Italy (Milan and Cortina)
- Opening Ceremony: Friday, Feb. 6
- Closing Ceremony: Sunday, Feb. 22
- TV: NBC, USA Network, CNBC and NBCSN
- Streaming: Peacock and NBCOlympics.com
NBC is free over the air. NBC.com and the NBC Sports app will also have replays.
The channels to know
NBC has exclusive Olympic broadcast rights in America. The network spreads that out to Peacock, USA, CNBC and NBCSN. Those linear channels are needed because of the Games’ sprawl and volume (116 medal events in 19 days). And some tape-delay coverage is required because of the time differences — six hours ahead of Eastern Time, nine for Pacific. Here’s how that all breaks down:
TV
- NBC for live events every afternoon and weekend mornings.
- NBC for “Primetime in Milan“ roundup and “Olympic Late Night” every night.
- USA for live wall-to-wall coverage of U.S. teams.
- CNBC for curling and additional coverage, after its business programs air.
- NBC Sports Network for “Gold Zone” whip-around and multiview presentation.
Streaming
- Peacock for the 24/7 livestream and “Gold Zone” action.
- NBCOlympics.com and the NBC Sports app with pay-TV login credentials.
On the main channel, NBC’s daytime window is scheduled for at least five hours of Olympic focus each day, with Rebecca Lowe as the host. Later, “Primetime in Milan” has three hours of nightly highlights. Mike Tirico anchors the program once his Super Bowl responsibilities are clear (quite literally, the same night as the game). Snoop Dogg and Stanley Tucci have been announced as celebrity guests.
That evening show is followed by a second, called “Olympic Late Night.” Maria Taylor takes the host chair after her Super Bowl assignments, as well.
The opening ceremony will be available on both NBC and Peacock on Friday, Feb. 6, with live coverage during the day and an encore in prime time. Performers range from Mariah Carey to Andrea Bocelli. Broadcasters include “Today” show co-host Savannah Guthrie and retired gold medalist Shaun White.
“Gold Zone” returns to Peacock and NBCSN. It’s a similar format to the NFL RedZone channel, so much so that Scott Hanson and Andrew Siciliano are two of the studio leads. Ashley Wagner, three-time U.S. champion figure skater, debuts as the first “Gold Zone” analyst.
In addition, a new “creator collective” dispatches to social media feeds throughout the Games. Bowen Yang and Kylie Kelce are at the front of that initiative.
The sports to watch
There’s a new sport at this year’s Olympics. In ski mountaineering, competitors race through a course by ski and on foot. Here’s a quick rundown of the schedule (all times listed below are ET).
The overview
- Alpine skiing: Feb. 4-18*
- Biathlon: Feb. 8-21
- Bobsled: Feb. 12-22*
- Cross-country skiing: Feb. 7-22
- Curling: Feb. 4-22
- Figure skating: Feb. 6-21**
- Freestyle skiing: Feb. 7-21
- Ice hockey: Feb. 5-22
- Luge: Feb. 4-12*
- Nordic combined skiing: Feb. 9-19*
- Short-track speed skating: Feb. 10-20
- Skeleton sledding: Feb. 9-15*
- Ski jumping: Feb. 5-16*
- Ski mountaineering: Feb. 19-21
- Snowboarding: Feb. 5-18
- Speed skating: Feb. 7-21
*includes pre-event training sessions
**includes an exhibition gala on Feb. 21
Some key medal events
- Alpine skiing men’s downhill: Saturday, Feb. 7, 5:30 a.m.
- Alpine skiing women’s downhill: Sunday, Feb. 8, 5:30 a.m.
- Speed skating women’s 1000m: Monday, Feb. 9, 11:30 a.m.
- Speed skating men’s 1000m: Wednesday, Feb. 11, 12:30 p.m.
- Figure skating free dance: Wednesday, Feb. 11, 1:30 p.m.
- Snowboarding women’s halfpipe: Thursday, Feb. 12, 1:30 p.m.
- Figure skating men’s free skate: Friday, Feb. 13, 1 p.m.
- Snowboarding men’s halfpipe: Friday, Feb. 13, 1:30 p.m.
- Ski jumping men’s large hill: Saturday, Feb. 14, 11:30 a.m.
- Ski jumping women’s large hill: Sunday, Feb. 15, 11:30 a.m.
- Figure skating pairs free skate: Monday, Feb. 16, 2 p.m.
- Figure skating women’s free skate: Thursday, Feb. 19, 1 p.m.
Team USA ice hockey schedules
NHL players are eligible for the hockey team, which was not the case in 2018 or 2022. Auston Matthews leads the U.S. after his 4 Nations captainship in 2025. Team Canada looms with superstars like Sidney Crosby and Connor McDavid. The U.S. men’s team last won gold in the 1980 “Miracle on Ice” at Lake Placid. Canada has three gold medals in the 21st century (2002, 2010 and 2014).
Men
- Preliminary vs. Latvia: Thursday, Feb. 12, 3:10 p.m.
- Preliminary vs. Denmark: Saturday, Feb. 14, 3:10 p.m.
- Preliminary vs. Germany: Sunday, Feb. 15, 3:10 p.m.
- Playoff: Tuesday, Feb. 17, 3:10 p.m.
- Quarterfinal: Wednesday, Feb. 18, 3:10 p.m.
- Semifinal: Friday, Feb. 20, 3:10 p.m.
- Bronze medal game: Saturday, Feb. 21, 2:10 p.m.
- Gold medal game: Sunday, Feb. 22, 8:10 a.m.
Canada also has five of the seven golds in women’s hockey, which made its Olympic debut in 1998. Team USA has the other two triumphs (1998 and 2018).
Women
- Preliminary vs. Czechia: Thursday, Feb. 5, 10:40 a.m.
- Preliminary vs. Finland: Saturday, Feb. 7, 10:40 a.m.
- Preliminary vs. Switzerland: Monday, Feb. 9, 2:40 p.m.
- Preliminary vs. Canada: Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2:10 p.m.
- Quarterfinal: Friday, Feb. 13, 3:10 p.m.
- Semifinal: Monday, Feb. 16, 10:40 a.m.
- Bronze medal game: Thursday, Feb. 19, 8:40 a.m.
- Gold medal game: Thursday, Feb. 19, 1:10 p.m.
The U.S. athletes to follow
Prodigal snowboarder Chloe Kim goes for a third straight gold in women’s halfpipe. She suffered a torn labrum in training, but confirmed her three-peat intentions last month.
Lindsey Vonn tries to ski the Olympic slopes for her first time in eight years. She came out of retirement with a surgically repaired right knee, but the 41-year-old Vonn crashed in her Jan. 30 World Cup downhill race, favoring her left leg after. She withdrew from World Cup super-G the next day, and said on Instagram that she was “doing my best” for Olympic prep.
Fellow alpine skier Mikaela Shiffrin, a two-time gold medalist, recorded her 100th World Cup victory in Italy last year. She’s the sport’s winningest athlete ever, but this third gold medal mission comes with added gravity. Shiffrin survived a traumatic injury during a November 2024 slalom race.
The 2026 Games will be a farewell tour for Jessie Diggins. The cross-country skier broke a 42-year medal drought for Team USA in 2018. “I don’t always have all the confidence in the world in my daily life, but when I get to the ski arena, I’m like, I know what I’m doing, I know why I’m doing it, and I know how I want to do it,” she told The Athletic’s Matthew Futterman.
Freeski standout Alex Hall competes with a rare mix of fearlessness and tranquility, as The Athletic’s Zak Keefer profiled. Hall landed the first in-competition 2160, which is six aerial rotations.
Figure skating remains a main attraction and central interest for Winter Olympic viewership. American women Alysa Liu, Amber Glenn and Isabeau Levito are all candidates for gold. Men’s skater Ilia Malinin, the 21-year-old “Quad God,” is a fast-rising phenomenon. Expect to hear his name early and often this year.
The journey to 2026
Though Milan is the lead Olympic city for name and promotion, events are spliced around mountain town Cortina d’Ampezzo. This is the fourth time that Italy hosts the Olympics. The others were the 1956 Winter Games in Cortina, 1960 Summer Games in Rome and 2006 Winter Games in Turin.
Host bids go through the International Olympic Committee, or IOC. Proposals get submitted by national sports governing bodies, city officials and a network of private-public partnerships. Advocates for hosting seek pride and prestige on a global stage. Opponents argue that bids lack democratic input or financial guardrails.
There were two finalists for the 2026 Games: the Milan-Cortina pairing and Sweden’s Stockholm–Åre bid. Calgary withdrew from consideration after a non-binding voter referendum in 2018. Turkey’s Erzurum was rejected due to sustainability concerns.
The previous 2022 Winter Olympics were in Beijing. Norway led the field with 37 medals and 16 golds. Germany was No. 2 in both total medals (27) and first-place finishes (12). The United States and China tied for third with nine gold medals each, but the U.S. had more bronzes and silvers to total 25 medals and break the tie on the table.
Among the major stories were a near-perfect “Rocketman” breakthrough for American figure skater Nathan Chen; a “Snow Princess” star turn for Chinese freestyle skier Eileen Gu; and Finland’s team triumph in men’s ice hockey.
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Chris Johnston reviews the ‘weird’ dimensions of a new Milan rink:
It had been a stunning couple of hours in my first trip to Santagiulia. The building and adjacent practice rink were much less finished than I ever dreamed they could be this close to the start of the Olympic tournament, even after all of the alarm bells senior NHL officials have been sounding in recent months.
Lindsay Schnell introduces readers to Team USA’s bobsled moms:
Both (Kaillie) Humphries and (Elana) Meyers Taylor say that being moms has changed their perspective on their sports-related dreams, not diminished them.
“We’ve always been told, ‘If you have a baby, your body will never be the same, you’re never gonna get back on the podium, you’re going to change physically and mentally, so when you have a kid, your sport career is done,’” Humphries said. “And that was true for a long time. But we’re proving that now, if you want both, you can have both.”
Jacob Whitehead on 20 Russian and Belarusian athletes competing stateless:
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has changed the landscape of global sport. Bolshunov, 29, is one of dozens of Russian and Belarusian athletes — over 200 competed at the last Games in Beijing — who will not compete for medals next month.
Twenty athletes from these nations will take part — but without their anthems, without their colours, and without a place in the medal table — instead known as “Individual Neutral Athletes” (AIN). They are stateless; competing, but not for their country.
Devon Henderson on Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Milan:
News of ICE’s role during the Olympics comes amid mass protests in Minneapolis over immigration crackdowns in the city. The protests have garnered worldwide attention in the wake of the killings of Renée Good and Alex Pretti, two American citizens shot by federal agents amid the unrest.
Before news of ICE’s involvement at the Games was confirmed, Milan mayor Giuseppe Sala told RTL Radio 102 that ICE would not be welcome in the city, which is hosting several events during the Winter Games from Feb. 6-22.
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