Olympics 2026 live: Maltais, Dubois carry Canada’s flag in closing ceremony; men’s hockey team stunned as U.S. wins gold medal game in OT
While it took a while for locals to warm up to the Olympics, they got there eventually. And as the curtain came down on the XXV Winter Games, grins stretched from the Naviglio Grande canal to the Dolomite mountains.
Herewith an alphabetical backwards look at some of the noteworthy — or notorious — people and events from the past fortnight. Plus a dab of wacko. Hopefully puts a smile on your face, too.
A: A is for Arianna, short-track speedskating goddess, a national heroine in Italy who has achieved one-name celebrity. Surname Fontana but also known as “The Blonde Arrow.” With a gold and a brace of silvers in Milan, the 35-year-old who grew up in a small town a two-hour drive north of here — her autographed photos are plastered all over local bars — became the host country’s most decorated Olympian ever: 14 medals and the only woman to have finished on the podium in six consecutive Games.
Not particularly beloved within the short-track squad, apparently, tensions dating back to 2019 when Arianna accused teammates of causing her to crash in training. Very Sicilian family feud for the Milanese. Snarked ever-cocky Pietro Sighel: “Who knows her? She’s training abroad for eight years. Except for two minutes we spend together on the track, we’re definitely not a team.”
Kingsbury got to write his own Olympic ending to a legendary career. The king of the moguls may be dead, but he leaves a towering legacy behind.
Kingsbury got to write his own Olympic ending to a legendary career. The king of the moguls may be dead, but he leaves a towering legacy behind.
B: Is for Babies and Busts. Which, when you think about it, kinda go together.
Babies because they’re everywhere. All three men on the dual moguls podium — Canada’s Mikaël Kingsbury, Japan’s Ikuma Horishima and Australia’s Matt Graham — had their bambinos on the hill for keepsake snaps. A fairy tale ending to his Olympic career for Kingsbury, who’d missed out on the moguls title because of a tiebreak, as he hands off to the next generation of freestyle skiers. But the dual event delivered a fifth medal for Kingsbury, and blessed relief, the first gold of these Games for Canada. Underneath his competition suit, Kingsbury wore a shirt that read: It’s good to be the king.
“It’s a message for me, and not for everyone else. I don’t want to sound cocky.”
Also showing off their tots: Canadian-turned-American bobsledder Kaillie Humphries Armbruster and teammate Elana Meyers Taylor, a pair of moms in their 40s, bronze and gold, while superstar Italian speedskater Francesca Lollobrigida got upstaged in interviews by her two-year-old.
Busts — as in bombs — would describe deliriously dominant American Ilia Malinin, who hadn’t lost a competition in more than two years. But at his Olympics debut, the self-titled “Quad God” was a disaster, popping and flopping and toppling all over the ice in the men’s final, a ghastly 15th in the free skate. And — sorry Maddie — Ditto debacle (although from nowhere near so profound a height) for Oakville’s Madeline Schizas. Celebrating her birthday for the second time at the Olympics (with lava cake as she turned 23), the McMaster University student badly botched a required jumping element in the women’s figure skating short program. Drew a big fat zero score on the marks tally, placing her 25th — one spot out of qualifying for the free skate. First time Canada hasn’t been representing in women’s free skate at the Olympics since 1998 in Nagano.
C: Is for crotches, crashes and cads. Crotches because ski-jumpers were raised in a World Anti-Doping Agency press conference over old allegations that some had injected their groins with hyaluronic acid to jack up aerodynamics. This was after members of the Norwegian team were suspended for cheating at last year’s world championships by manipulating fabric in the crotch area of their ski suits likewise to increase aerodynamics. Just can’t keep their hands off their nether regions.
Norwegian biathlete Sturla Holm Laegreid surprised the world by revealing after winning a bronze medal he’d cheated on his girlfriend and pleaded for her forgiveness.
U.S. short-tracker Corinne Stoddard, who was a one-woman crash test dummy, wiping out in three races on one day and again the next day, taking a Polish woman with her, both crawling to the finish line. “This whole experience has been incredibly unfortunate and I feel embarrassed by how many times I’ve crashed,” Stoddard posted on Instagram. “I also feel embarrassed by how much I’ve choked on the Olympics stage over and over again.”
And the cad, Norwegian biathlete Sturla Holm Laegreid who, after winning bronze in the 20K, confessed on live TV to having cheated on his girlfriend and pleaded for her forgiveness. Which she sounds disinclined to grant, telling Norway’s largest newspaper she was “hurt to be put in this situation” and Laegreid was “hard to forgive, even after a declaration of love in front of the whole world.”
D: Is for doping and dopes. Scarcely any of the former, although often positive results are only disclosed later. But Italian biathlete Rebecca Passler was provisionally suspended on the eve of the Games after testing positive for Letrozole, prescribed in the treatment of breast cancer, but used by athletes to control the effects of steroids. The Italian Winter Sports Federation successfully appealed on Passler’s behalf and she was cleared to compete by the Italian Anti-Doping Agency, which bought hook, line and sinker her explanation that she’d eaten chocolate spread with a spoon previously used by her mother, who is being treated for cancer. A lickety-split extrication.
Unlike the dopey Finnish ski jumping head coach Igor Medved, who was expelled from the Games for drunkenness. Slovenian-born Medved claimed he hadn’t actually over-wet-his-whistle whilst celebrating a Slovenian gold medal in another event, but rather had unwisely boozed on “an empty stomach.” Either way, consuming any alcohol was a violation of team rules so Medved was sent packing and is probably crying in his beer right now.
American Breezy Johnson got engaged at the bottom of the ski hill shortly after crashing out of the super-G.
E: Is for engagement and embarrassment. There were at least two altogether too PDA proposals during these Games. U.S. downhill gold medallist Breezy Johnson crashed out of the super-G but at the bottom of the slope her boyfriend was waiting to drop down on one knee and ask her to marry him, presenting a sapphire ring in a wooden box on what had Taylor Swift lyrics had been engraved. He was criticized for “stealing her moment” and I am hurling.
Team USA women’s hockey captain Hilary Knight likewise assumed the position, asking for the hand of world record speedskater Brittany Bowe — she said yes — the whole episode documented for Instagram.
And you thought proposals on the Jumbotron at Scotiabank Arena were Fremdscham …
Nothing is more embarrassing to a kid than a parent doing something truly cringe-y. Even if that kid is 18 years old. Maybe especially if that kid is 18 years old because being a teenager is one big heapin’ pile of self-consciousness.
Lasse Gaxiola was here as a skier for Mexico. And so was his mom. They made history as the first mother-son duo at the same Olympics. Fortunately they didn’t go head-to-head. Gaxiola competed in the men’s slalom, Sarah Schleper finished dead last in the super-G.
Mamma admits her son is mortified whenever she does “show-off-y” things on the slopes. “He’s, like, ‘Mom, no, no, no.’ He’s embarrassed about everything.”
F: Is for F——— And there was a lot of it going on around here. Not referring to the condoms that ran out after just three days at the athletes village either, “due to higher than anticipated demand.” Rather, the expletive-laden outburst from Canada’s Marc Kennedy toward Team Sweden’s Oskar Eriksson during a midmatch contretemps between the vice-skips. Eriksson had accused Kennedy of touching the stone a second time after releasing the handle. To wit(less):
Kennedy: “I haven’t done it once. You can f—- off.”
Canada’s Marc Kennedy had a few choice words for fellow vice-skip Oskar Eriksson after the Swede accused him of double touching the stone.
Eriksson: “You haven’t done it once? I’ll show you a video after the game.”
Kennedy: “How about you walking around on my peel in the last end, dancing around the house? How about that? Come on Oskar, just f—- off.”
Eriksson: “You want me to show you the video?”
Kennedy: “I don’t give a s—t.”
G: Is for Grifter. French biathlete Julia Simons copped gold in the 15km four months after admitting to and being convicted of fraud for using credit card details of teammate Justine Braisaz-Bouchet to rack up 2,000 Euros ($3,200 Cdn) in charges. Adding insult to larceny, Braisaz-Bouchet finished 80th.
Ukraine skeleton racer Vladyslav Heraskevych was heroic for refusing to switch out his “remembrance helmet” that featured portraits of 21 Ukrainian athletes who’ve been killed in Russian attacks over the past four years of war, some of them his friends, in a move that got him disqualified from the Olympics by the IOC.
H: Is for Hero. To much of the world, maybe even IOC poltroons, Ukraine skeleton racer Vladyslav Heraskevych was heroic for refusing to switch out his “remembrance helmet” that featured portraits of 21 Ukrainian athletes who’ve been killed in Russian attacks over the past four years of war, some of them his friends. Heraskevych rejected any compromise suggested in a meeting with IOC president Kirsty Coventry and was disqualified, denied participation in the Games for violating a prohibition on political speech. Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused the IOC of “playing into the hands of aggressors.”
H is also for Haka, in the snow, a heartfelt version of the Maori ceremonial dance perform by Kiwi snowboarders in tribute to silver in big air for New Zealander Zoi Sadowski-Synnott.
I: Is for Italy. Duh. A congenial host, a gorgeous country and, by the midway point of the Games, had already surpassed its previous best Winter Games showing of seven gold and 20 medals. Final countdown: No. 3 on the medal tote board with 30 medals. Ten gold, six silver, 14 bronze.
J: Is for Johannes, as in Johannes Hoesflot Klaebo, aka “King Klaebo,” who on Saturday soared into the panoply of legends by winning his sixth cross-country skiing gold in Milan — overtaking a Norwegian teammate on the final lap of the men’s 50K mass start, with a frenetic burst of unbelievable energy after more than two hours of skiing. Six for six. Most ever in a single Winter Games by anybody. Actually he had already attained legendary status with five golds across two previous Olympics. Now with 11, Klaebo trails only Michael Phelps as most decorated Olympian of all-time. Says his “secret weapon” is his grandfather-coach, who’s trained him since he was 15. Kare Hoesflot is 83 years old and still doing his thing. “It’s always been grandpa from the very start.”
Kazakhstan’s Mikhail Shaidorov landed five clean quads as part of a gold-medal performance that no one saw coming in men’s figure skating.
K: Is for Kazakhstan, which won its first figure skating gold and nobody saw it coming. Mikhail Shaidorov landed five clean quads — he’d never even attempted that before — and was the most gobsmacked person. The only previous Olympic figure skating medallist from the Central Asian country was Denis Ten, with bronze in Sochi 2014. Ten was fatally stabbed in Almaty in 2018 by two men attempting to steal his car.
L: Is for Lollobrigida. Gina Lollobrigida, who went bosom-to-bosom with Sophia Loren as Italian cinema bombshells in the 50s and 60s, if never in La Loren’s acting league. I was outraged when a (admittedly quite younger) colleague claimed he’d never heard of Gina, who’d lived for a time in Toronto with her husband and son. Gina is sadly deceased but her grandniece Francesca is speedskating glitterati for Italy, a double Olympic champion in Milan, winning the 5,000 metres just five days after earning gold in the 3,000 metres on her 35th birthday.
M: Is for Money. Olympians do get some lucre from their home countries for winning medals at a Games. Canadians receive $20,000 (alas, in Canadian dollars) for gold, $15,000 for silver, $10,000 for bronze. And another $5,000 for each medal from the Malaviya Fund. But the most generous nation is Singapore: in U.S. dollars about $790,000/$395,000/$197,000. Of course, Singapore has won only six medals since 1948 and none at the Winter Games, where it’s been represented only since 2018.
In Milan, they have one (1) competitor. Faiz Basha, who actually was born in Singapore — not a mercenary — concluded his maiden Olympics with a 35th-place finish in the slalom, a triumph for him, raising his arms after completing the second run and yelling: “Majulah!” (Onward!) In the earlier giant slalom, he’d lost a ski and was DNF.
N: Is for Norway, juggernaut winter sports nation, though weirdly can’t play hockey. Yet again the Norwegians have topped the medal tally with 41 — 18 gold, 12 silver, 11 bronze — and set a record for most medals in one Winter Olympics. A country with a smaller population than the GTA. They invented the ski. They also invented the cheese slicer.
O: Is for Ow! The Olympics hurt and Lindsey Vonn wasn’t the only athlete stretchered by helicopter to the emergency ward with a fractured leg. (And the next day her dog died.) Broken bones, torn ligaments, shredded tendons littered snow and ice. Italy’s 16-year-old Giada D’Antonio mangled her ACL training for the giant slalom. An Australian snowboarder cracked a couple of neck vertebrae and was likewise evacuated by chopper. Polish short-tracker Kamila Sellier was slashed across the face by an opponent’s skate blade and gushed blood. Among the triaged Canadians was Olympic freestyle champion Cassie Sharpe, who suffered a bad fall during qualifications, lost consciousness and was taken off the course on a sled.
Canada’s Courtney Sarault wears a pink scrunchy to hold her hair back as she competes and incorporates the colour in other ways to remind her of her younger self, “that little girl with a dream.”
P: Is for Pink. As in the pink scrunchy Canadian short-track quadruple medallist Courtney Sarault was wearing to hold back her hair when she won medals in the 1,000, 500, mixed relay and women’s relay. “I love pink. When I was younger I wore a pink suit. As you get older you can’t wear a whole pink suit anymore. It’s kind of a way to bring my personality and my own flair into the sport. The pink scrunchy made a statement. I’ve been wearing it since I was maybe 17, as soon as I started on the world circuit. When I won my first senior medal age 18, it was there alive and well. The camera caught it. I’ve incorporated pink on my skates. I have pink glasses. It reminds me of my younger self, that little girl with a dream. As much as I’m a bit of a beast sometimes, I still have a girlie side.”
Q: Is for QR Code, bane of my existence. No such thing as paper anymore in the media centre or any venue. I begged for a start list at one event and was told: “We’re not allowed to print out anything. It’s an IOC rule.”
R: Is for RAI, which I’ve always said is the worst, cheesiest, most bush league state TV broadcaster in the Western World. Its own journalists went haywire over the incompetence of sports director Paolo Petrecca’s botched anchoring of the opening ceremony. Among his blunders, he welcomed viewers to Rome’s Stadio Olimpico (hello, we’re in Milan), mistook an Italian actor for Mariah Carey, and misidentified IOC president Kirsty Coventry as the daughter of the Italian president.
S: Is for Slovenian siblings Domen and Nika Prevc, both ski-jumping to gold, making it a family of four Winter Olympic gold medallists — brothers Peter and Cene preceding them. The sport only allowed women to ski-jump at the Olympics in 2014 and off the big hill for the first time in Milan. Exclusion had been justified out of concern females would “damage their reproductive organs.”
T: Is for tourists. Milan was expecting 2 million of them to pass through during the Games. Easy to spot — they’re the ones in hoodies and yoga pants.
Jutta Leerdam pulled off an audacious piece of ambush marketing when she unzipped her race suit after winning speedskating gold, revealing a Nike sports bra, a move that may have made her $1 million richer.
U: Is for Unzipped, my favourite part of speedskating, when the guys release their skin-tight uniforms at the end of a race, sometimes pulling down their suits below the waist. Yes, I ogle. Meanwhile, beauteous Dutch speedskater Jutta Leerdam, possibly the mostly disliked (or envied) athlete in Milan — engaged to YouTube influencer turned boxer Jake Paul, the couple arriving here on a private jet — proved she’s not just a dumb blond by pulling off an audacious piece of ambush marketing. Unzipped her race suit after winning gold to reveal a Nike sports bra — Nike isn’t an official sponsor and can’t go flashing its brand around the Games — during her victory lap. That bit of chutzpah may have made her up to $1 million richer, as Nike posted the photo on its website.
A loose dog found its way onto the track near the finish line of the women’s team sprint free cross-country skiing heats in Tesero, Italy.
Then Leerdam was offered $300,000 for a “one-time performance” on an adult entertainment website to showcase her “Jutt-ing behind.”
V: Is for the Dutch brothers van ’T Wout, Jens and Melle, four gold medals between them in short-track. But mostly because it amuses me to type that — van ’T Wout. And if you think it’s funny in print, you should hear how it’s pronounced.
Also W for Whinge and Whine — all those Americans with their shorts in a knot, even got a change.org petition going for an appeal — over ice dancers Madison Chock and Evan Bates finishing 0.43 of a point behind the French gold medallists Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron. I’m not a fan of figure skating judges but they got this one right.
X: Is for Xandra Velzeboer, short-track sensation for the Netherlands, which apparently is no longer content to stay in its long-track speedskating lane. Velzeboer struck gold twice on the shortie oval in the 1,000 metres and 500 metres. The double-triumph was matched and mirrored by Dutchman Jens van ’T Wout in the 1,000 and 1,500. He’s pretty but she’s Goldilocks prettier.
Y: Is for Youngbloods. The next-gen athletes who made splashy debuts here. From 17-year-old Gaon Choi Gaon of Korea, who stunned two-time and defending champion Chloe Kim in women’s halfpipe, to 19-year-old Macklin Celebrini, kidlet and perfect fit for Canada’s men’s hockey squad. And a reminder that Canada needs fresh blood for Salt Lake City.
Z: Is for Zibanejad, Mika to his friends, who buried the tying goal for Team Sweden with 1:31 left in regulation in the quarterfinals, then hung his head between his legs on the bench as Team USA scored the overtime winner, ousting Sweden from the men’s hockey tournament. “It is tough, tough, an empty feeling.”
