With 100 days to go until the opening ceremony, anticipation is building for the Winter Olympic Games, set to span the Northern Italian cities of Milan and Cortina from February 6–22, 2026.
This week in New York, the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee hosted a preview summit, of sorts. On view in one corner of the Javits Center was Polo Ralph Lauren’s “Village” collection, to be distributed to athletes staying at the Olympic Village; the company, which has dressed American Olympians since 2008, will reveal its opening ceremony looks in early December. In another corner, a forum stage featured a series of panels peopled by top cold-weather athletes, all of whom are likely to qualify for the Games (if they haven’t already).
Biggest among them was Lindsey Vonn, the star skier bidding for an Olympic comeback after being away from the sport for five years (and undergoing partial knee replacement surgery in the process). She led a kickoff press conference bright and early on Tuesday in an ice blue Gabriela Hearst suit. From there, a steady stream of names—figure skating power couple Madison Chock and Evan Bates, snowboarder Red Gerard, and more—would move through the Javits Center on, fittingly, one of the first truly chilly days of the season.
We dropped in to touch base with a few of them on site.
Lindsey Vonn, Alpine Skiing
At 41, Vonn is preparing an Olympic comeback for the ages after ending a five-year skiing hiatus in late 2024. She will likely be the US’s biggest name, and story, going into the Winter Games. Vonn has won three Olympic medals (one gold and two bronzes), and if she clinches another in Cortina, she’ll break (decimate, really) the record for oldest female alpine skier to do so. The previous threshold? Also set by her, at 33, at the 2018 Games in PyeongChang, South Korea.
She has good reason to believe it’s doable: “I think what gives me the most confidence going into Milano Cortina is that I’ve just raced on this track so many times,” Vonn said. (Said venue is called Olympia delle Tofane and has been part of the Women’s World Cup circuit since 1993.) “I’ve raced on that track more times than any other competitor on the tour, which doesn’t, you know, guarantee anything, but it definitely gives me confidence. I’ve been visualizing it over and over. I can feel the turns if I think about it. The mountain and I have a great relationship.”
She added: “Something I need to work on, though, is that I haven’t done a lot of racing at really high speeds—and Cortina is a very fast downhill. So hopefully I get a little bit more training, but the summer went very well.”
Decades after making her Olympic debut at the 2002 Games in Salt Lake City, competing for Team USA remains, to Vonn, a total honor. “I think the patriotism, the fact that you’re representing your country… it’s a more profound responsibility than any other race you’ll ever compete in.”
And when the pressure is at its peak?
“When I was 12 years old,” Vonn said, “I was in a competition and I was in second place in the standings. I remember standing at the starting gate and I kept telling myself, ‘You can do this, you can do this, you can do this.’ I have always kept saying that to myself. It’s almost become a meditation. I’m going to be saying that to myself a lot.”
Amber Glenn, Figure Skating
Texas-born Amber Glenn, 26, is aiming for her very first Olympic appearance, after testing positive for COVID-19 ahead of Beijing 2022 and ultimately missing those Games. She is, by current standings, the US’s best chance for an individual figure-skating gold; she’s won the last two US National Championships, as well as the 2024-2025 Grand Prix of Figure Skating Final.
Glenn is notably also one of the rare publicly queer athletes in the Olympics conversation (though these numbers are rising)—and she is outspoken about her position as such. Upstairs at the Javits Center, she met us wearing a pin of the new pride flag, folded into a heart. (She sported the brooch throughout the day’s filmed media, too.)
“Being part of the LGBTQ+ community is a core part of my being. It is one of the reasons why I am still doing this so many years later, because I get to be on the biggest stages possible, at least for our sport,” said Glenn. “Representing the community, my values… it’s even more [important] to stand by it [in the current climate]. I want people to feel safe and be able to be comfortable in their own environments, and for queer athletes to be part of that belief.”
As she departed, Glenn said one of her favorite figure skating elements is a “death drop.” To those versed in ballroom and vogueing, a “death drop” is a well-known move in which the dancer folds a knee and falls backward to the floor. Glenn, of course, knew this, and immediately acted it out. “Ours is more like this,” she said, before raising one leg, swinging it forward, lifting the other, and spinning gracefully out of the room. An exit!
Alex Hall, Freestyle Skiing
Fairbanks, Alaska-born and Zurich-raised Alex Hall, 27, is already a gold medal winner: he took the top prize in Beijing for freestyle skiing, slopestyle. And he’s ready to do it again in Milano Cortina—Hall has already secured his spot on the team.
“I’m working on a couple of new tricks,” Hall said in New York, “that I have to keep a secret for now. And then I’m trying to perfect them this fall. It’s always fun to bust out new stuff and, you know, surprise the fans, surprise the viewers. I try to one-up myself each time, which is hard to do—but you have to keep chugging away at it.”
Hall noted that, while freestyle skiing has a relaxed air in the way it’s presented—think laid-back ski-bum vibes—executing the sport’s gravity-defying moves demands a great deal of precision and discipline. “We all work really hard at it, and sometimes that kind of gets, like, lost in the mix. All the technical work that goes into it… it’s a harder grind than people might expect.”
Sam Macuga, Ski Jumping; Lauren Macuga, Alpine Skiing; Alli Macuga, Moguls
Sam Macuga, who will turn 25 during the Olympics, Lauren Macuga, 23, and Alli Macuga, 22, have been dubbed by The New York Times as “America’s Next First Family of the Winter Olympics.” (They hail from Park City, Utah.)
It’s a pretty fitting title; these women are not only elite athletes in their respective disciplines (each has medaled and placed in a number of major competitions), but they’re also highly personable and entertaining as a trio. Together, they’re pre-writing the kind of narrative modern American culture eats up, a sort of Brady Bunch-y, Kardashian-esque blend of light drama and deep sisterly love. Plus, if the three siblings make the Olympics in the same year in different sports, the rarity of the event would only add to their lore. (They have a younger brother who also skis, but he is not competing at Olympic level yet.)
Lauren, whose competitive quirk is that she needs to wear a bucket hat both pre- and post-race, said, “when I see [my sisters] do well, I’m like, oh my gosh. I want to do well with them! We all have our individual dreams, but this is, like… a team dream. It’s just cute.”
Alli added: “Ideally all of us go, but, like, the second I think we hear about any of us going, we’re all going to be in tears.”
Sam, the eldest, at one point in our conversation imparted a wisened sound bite as to where she—where they all—need to be to qualify: “It’s about getting enough training in to make what we’re doing a habit, instead of, you know, something we’re fighting to attain every time.”
When asked what sport they’d each play if they weren’t in their existing disciplines, Lauren said, quickly, “hockey.” Sam wanted to take that one, but no copying was allowed, so she said “soccer.” Alli then came through with a wildcard. “Football. I’d be a quarterback for the Broncos.”
Mystique Ro, Skeleton
Virginia-born skeleton ace Mystique Ro, 31, is a name to watch going into Milano Cortina; in 2025, she won an individual silver at the World Championships and a team gold. And while skeleton—a sliding sport, carried out head-first on a small blade-like sled down manmade ice chutes—isn’t a widely known discipline, Ro’s gold prospects in Italy stand to give it a spotlight.
Ro put the sport’s fundamentals in simple terms: “Skeleton is like a crazy rollercoaster,” she said. “We apply the same rules: ‘Keep your hands and feet inside the ride at all times.’”
“Imagine a human penguin,” she added. “And, the fastest speed is the best. More speed is always better. But it’s a little counterintuitive because your natural fight or flight instincts kick in and you want to slow down. To succeed, you just have to embrace the chaos, and you have to be very subtle.”
“Once it’s race day, it’s about the flow state for me,” Ro continued. “It’s about shutting everything down, all the thinking and the wondering, and going only into feeling.”
Caroline Harvey, Ice Hockey
New Hampshire-born hockey star Caroline “K.K.” Harvey, 23, made her Olympic debut at the 2022 Beijing Games, where Team USA won a silver medal. Harvey was its youngest member—and has been named one of the best women’s hockey defenders in the world.
Harvey may also possess a touch of clairvoyance: When she was a child, she told her aunt, “I want to go to the Olympics in 2022.” “I didn’t believe her when she told me that,” Harvey added.
Having been to the Games once already, Harvey has some sage self-advice: “There’s so much hype around the Olympics, but you kind of just have to go back to like, it’s the same game,” she said. “Don’t worry: no matter who’s watching or how many people are in the stands, it’s the same game you’ve always played your whole life.”
She added, with a smile: “I feel like people think it’s less physical than the men’s side of the game. But we do get really rough and fight too, in a way. I mean, we don’t take our gloves and helmets off, but it’s a very physical game… it’s fun to watch.”