In Olympic sports this week, Lindsey Vonn makes her season debut as the women’s Alpine skiing World Cup holds its first speed races.
Vonn is expected to compete in downhills on Friday and Saturday and a super-G on Sunday in St. Moritz, Switzerland, one year after ending a five-year retirement to bid for a fifth and final Olympics.
In her most recent race, Vonn capped her comeback season last March by becoming, at age 40, the oldest woman to make a World Cup podium.
Mikaela Shiffrin is expected to race strictly Sunday’s super-G. Shiffrin, who last raced a super-G in December 2023, has said that her St. Moritz performance will factor into whether she bids to add the super-G to her Olympic schedule, which should already include the slalom, giant slalom and team combined.
World downhill champion Breezy Johnson also headlines a field that will be without three of the top five downhillers from the last World Cup season: Italian Federica Brignone, American Lauren Macuga and Swiss Lara Gut-Behrami. Macuga and Gut-Behrami will miss the Olympics due to injuries. Brignone, who broke her left leg in April, is working her way back for a possible return by the Milan Cortina Games.
After St. Moritz, Shiffrin heads to Courchevel, France, to bid for a fifth consecutive World Cup slalom win next Tuesday.
In freestyle skiing and snowboarding, Visa Big Air in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, airs on Saturday from 2:30-4 p.m. ET (CNBC and Peacock) and Sunday from 4-6 p.m. ET (NBC and Peacock).
The event is one of a series of U.S. Olympic qualifying competitions for snowboard big air and ski big air. Headliners Alex Hall, the 2022 Olympic ski slopestyle gold medalist, and Red Gerard, the 2018 Olympic snowboard slopestyle gold medalist, already qualified for the Olympic team in both slopestyle and big air.
Jamie Anderson, the 2014 and 2018 Olympic snowboard slopestyle gold medalist, is expected to compete for the first time since having her second daughter, Nova, in April. Anderson, whose last big air and slopestyle competitions were the 2022 Olympics, has tempered expectations in big air as her priority is upcoming slopestyle events.
Other notables expected to compete who are still vying for Olympic spots include, in skiing, 2022 Olympic big air silver medalist Colby Stevenson and fellow 2022 Olympian Mac Forehand and, in snowboarding, 17-year-old Ollie Martin, who earned bronze medals in big air and slopestyle at last March’s World Championships.
In curling, American teams led by Tabitha Peterson (Eagan, MN) and Danny Casper (Briarcliff Manor, NY) are each one win away from securing Olympic spots at the last-chance qualification tournament in Kelowna, Canada.
Peterson, a 2018 and 2022 Olympian, and her team face Japan or Norway on Thursday (1 p.m. ET, Peacock). The winner clinches the last available Olympic women’s team spot. Casper, who defeated 2018 Olympic gold medalist John Shuster at the Olympic Trials, and his team have two chances to qualify: versus China on Wednesday 10 p.m. ET, Peacock) and, if necessary, Japan on Thursday 6 p.m. ET, Peacock).
In the speed skating World Cup, Jordan Stolz, who can become the second American to win three gold medals at a single Winter Olympics, is coming off a sweep of his three primary events at last weekend’s World Cup.
At the most revered speed skating venue in the world – Thialf in the Netherlands – Stolz broke track records in the 500m, 1000m and 1500m that had been held by his Dutch rivals. In all, Stolz has won nine of his 11 races this World Cup season across those three events.
Stolz will take that momentum into the Viking Ship in Hamar. Peacock airs live coverage Friday at 12:30 p.m. ET, Saturday at 8 a.m. ET and Sunday at 7 a.m. ET. CNBC airs highlights Sunday from 2-3 p.m. ET.
Erin Jackson, who in 2022 became the first Black woman to win individual Winter Olympic gold in any sport, injured a hamstring before last weekend’s World Cup, did not race and posted that she hopes to return this week.
Like Stolz, Jackson has already met Olympic qualifying criteria via World Cup results. Before the injury, Jackson ranked second in the 500m this season behind Dutchwoman Femke Kok, who last lost a 500m in February 2024.
The U.S. has more Olympic medal contenders including Casey Dawson in the men’s 5000m, Mia Manganello in the women’s mass start and the men’s team pursuit (including Dawson), all World Cup winners so far this season.
The U.S. and Canada conclude their four-game, pre-Olympic series on Wednesday and Saturday in Edmonton. In the first two games in the U.S., the Americans won 4-1 and 6-1. The U.S. has won four consecutive games against Canada dating back to last April’s World Championship tournament.
U.S. standouts in the first two games included Olympic veterans Hilary Knight and Abbey Murphy, who each recorded a hat trick. Knight has said Milan Cortina would be her fifth and final Olympics.
Laila Edwards and Taylor Heise, potential first-time Olympians, combined for nine points in the first two games.
Canada, which was without some of its stars for the first two games, added forward Brianne Jenner, the 2022 Olympic MVP, and Ann-Renée Desbiens, its No. 1 goalie each of the last five years, for the final two games.
The bobsled and skeleton World Cup moves to Lillehammer, Norway, for races Friday through Sunday.
American Kaysha Love, last season’s world monobob champion, is the only non-German to win a bobsled race so far this season with a victory and three runners-up in four World Cup events. All of her second-place finishes came behind Laura Nolte, the reigning Olympic and world champion in the two-woman event and world’s top-ranked driver.
After Love and Nolte, four different women have recorded third-place finishes, including 2022 Olympic monobob gold medalist Kaillie Humphries. Five-time Olympic medalist Elana Meyers Taylor has a best finish this season of sixth.
In skeleton, the notable Americans are Mystique Ro and Austin Florian, who won the mixed team event at last March’s World Championships in Lake Placid. Ro and Florian were fifth together in the mixed team last month at the first competition held at the 2026 Olympic track in Cortina. Florian was also 10th in the individual event in Cortina, while Ro was 26th in the women’s event.
Jessie Diggins, the most decorated U.S. cross-country skier with an Olympic medal of every color, has three podiums in six races this season, including a victory, to lead the World Cup overall standings. She has already clinched a spot on her fourth and final Olympic team in her farewell season.
World Cup races in Davos, Switzerland, from Friday through Sunday include the season’s first team sprint. In 2018, Diggins and Kikkan Randall won the team sprint for the U.S.’ first Olympic cross-country skiing title. Diggins and her new partner, Julia Kern, won team sprint silver and bronze medals at the last two World Championships.
The luge World Cup heads to Park City, Utah, for racing Friday starting at 5 p.m. ET and Saturday starting at 6:05pm ET, both live on Peacock.
Though Germany and Austria are the luge powers, the U.S. had a promising start to the season last month in the first competition held at the 2026 Olympic track in Cortina.
Marcus Mueller and Ansel Haugsjaa were second in men’s doubles. Ashley Farquharson was fourth in women’s singles. Americans placed fifth in women’s doubles (Chevonne Forgan and Sophia Kirkby) and in the team relay.
