For many U.S. Olympic athletes, Italy feels like home turf

In January, American athlete Jessie Diggins, the world’s top-ranked feminine cross-country skier, sprinted up a steep slope in Italy’s Val di Fiemme, poles pumping, for her third Tour de Ski victory.

Now, Diggins is again on the close by Tesero Cross-Nation Snowboarding Stadium in Val di Fiemme, a valley within the Italian Dolomites, for the Olympics — on a course the place she’s raced many instances.

Whereas the 2026 Winter Olympics happen 1000’s of miles from the U.S., centered across the enterprise capital Milan and the ski resort city Cortina, the competitors websites in northern Italy are acquainted floor for a lot of on Crew USA.

“Our athletes compete there usually. A lot of them practice there,” says Sarah Hirshland, CEO of the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee. “It is a spot the place we all know we will shine.”

To assist even the taking part in discipline, cross nation officers have reconfigured the course. “Most of it is not the identical; it is fairly actually operating backwards for a part of it,” Diggins says. “You might have individuals like me who’ve been racing there for a really very long time, however on the similar time everybody’s form of relearning it yet again,” she says.

At Val di Fiemme, athletes will even be ski leaping off steep, specialised ramps — and each cross-country snowboarding and ski leaping within the Nordic mixed.

Two hours to the north, driving over winding mountain roads, there’s the Antholz-Anterselva Biathlon Area. The valley is taken into account a “biathlon sanctuary,” in response to Biathlon World, the place high athletes have been snowboarding and capturing rifles for greater than 50 years.

U.S. biathletes have a selected benefit. “Our head coach for the final eight years is from the Antholz Valley, born and raised,” says Deedra Irwin, the highest U.S. feminine biathlete. “Most of our wax workers have been ski racing there since they had been youngsters.”

The U.S. has by no means medaled in biathlon. This may very well be their likelihood, Irwin says. “We form of are the locals,” she says. “We acquired all of the native intel, we acquired a pleasant setup in our home there.”

Some 40 miles to the south, the ski resort city Cortina d’Ampezzo will host curling and sliding sports activities like bobsled and skeleton. Ladies’s Alpine skiers will compete on one of many world’s most iconic runs: the Olympia delle Tofane, which debuted on the 1956 Winter Video games.

It looms massive in Alpine skier Lindsey Vonn’s private historical past. “Each [skier] has their mountain the place they really feel most at residence,” Vonn says. “For me, it is at all times been Cortina and Lake Louise. These are my two favourite spots.” Vonn has gained many main milestone races in each Cortina and Lake Louise in Canada.

Vonn, who’s 41, is popping out of retirement for her fifth Olympic Video games. “I’ve a very good reference to the mountain. I do know what it wants. I do know what it takes to win there.”

A significant crash induced Vonn to rupture a knee ligament every week earlier than the beginning of the Video games, however she introduced this week she is going to nonetheless compete.

“I really like the city; I really like the environment. Everybody there has at all times welcomed me and handled me like an area,” Vonn says. A restaurant in Cortina named a margherita pizza after her.

These mountains lured her again for yet another Olympic run. “It is such a stupendous place. It is onerous to not stand on high of that mountain and probably not notice why you’re keen on the game,” Vonn says. “I am excited to return there and see the dawn yet another time.”

Vonn crashed badly at a World Cup race every week earlier than the beginning of the Olympics. She introduced that she is going to nonetheless compete within the Video games, snowboarding with a brace over the torn anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) on her left knee. “So long as there’s nonetheless an opportunity, I’ll attempt,” Vonn says.

The 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Olympics kick off with the opening ceremony on Feb. 6 on the hundred-year-old San Siro Stadium in Milan and conclude Feb. 22 in Verona at one other historic venue: an outdated Roman amphitheater in-built A.D. 30 that gladiators as soon as fought in.