Across the board, women are set to make up 47 percent of athletes.
The Olympic Winter Games in Milan began on Feb. 6, 2026, with the U.S. roster—made up of 115 women and 117 men—nearly reaching gender parity.
This year’s games will also feature a number of new women’s events including freestyle skiing’s dual moguls, luge doubles, ski jumping’s large individual hill and ski mountaineering sprint. However, even as the International Olympic Committee (IOC) celebrates their strides towards gender equality at the Games, there remain a number of sports where women are not afforded an equal opportunity to compete—including Nordic combined.
Annika Malacinski is ranked 10th in the world for women’s Nordic combined. She commented on being excluded from the games while her brother, who also competes in Nordic combined, goes on to become an Olympian.
“[We] work just as hard, sacrifice just as much,” Malacinsky said to NPR. “I mean, we both live in Norway, we live in a place that we didn’t grow up in just to be the best that we can be. And the only thing that is stopping me from being at the Olympic Village right now is because I’m a female.”
Without the inclusion of women’s Nordic combined, full gender parity at the Winter Olympics is yet to be achieved. Even still, this year is the most gender balanced Olympic Winter Games in history. Across the board, women are set to make up 47 percent of athletes. Just one transgender athlete will compete in this year’s games: Sweden’s Elis Lundholm, competing in moguls.
Here are some of the athletes contributing to that history to watch in the days to come.
Jessie Diggins
Jessie Diggins is the most decorated U.S. cross-country skier in the sport’s history. In 2018, she took home the country’s first-ever cross country gold with Kikkan Randall. This Winter Olympics, she won the bronze medal in the women’s 10-kilometer interval start, despite having bruised her ribs in the opening race.
“Honestly, I think I’m the happiest, most grateful bronze medallist in the whole world,” Diggins said this week. “It’s been one heck of a painful week. Two days ago, I was like, I don’t know how I’m going to do this.”
This will be Diggins’ last Olympics as she plans to retire at the end of the season. She is set to race two more times in Milan, at the women’s team sprint free on Feb. 18 and the women’s 50k mass start classic on Feb. 22.
Amber Glenn
Figure skater Amber Glenn, 26, won a gold medal this week in the figure skating team event. She is the first openly queer woman to represent the U.S. figure skating team at the Olympics and is using her platform to advocate for LGBTQ rights.
This week, she had to take a step back from social media after receiving what she called “a scary amount of hate/threats for simply using my voice” after criticizing President Donald Trump in a pre-Olympics press conference last week. “It’s been a hard time for the [LGBTQ] community overall in this administration,” she has said.
Breezy Johnson
Breezy Johnson, 30, won her gold medal last Sunday in the women’s downhill ski race, then placed 4th in the women’s team combined for Alpine skiing with her partner Mikaela Shiffrin, a two-time Olympic gold medalist.
Johnson, who is bisexual, was also the first LGBTQ athlete to take gold in Milan for Team USA.
“They deserve to know that the world of champions is not just composed of straight white people,” said Johnson on her decision to come out.
Chloe Kim
In 2018, 17-year-old Chloe Kim became the youngest woman to win Olympic gold in snowboarding. After winning gold again in 2022 at the Winter Olympics in Beijing, Kim sought to take her third consecutive gold medal this year in Milan. She took silver in the women’s halfpipe, coming in second to her own protege, 17-year-old Gaon Choi.
“I’ve known [Choi] since she was little, and it means a lot to see that I’ve inspired the next generation and they’re now out here killing it,” said Kim after the competition.
Elis Lundholm
Swedish mogul skier Elis Lundholm, 23, made history as first transgender athlete to participate in the Winter Olympics, and is the only trans athlete competing at the 2026 Winter Games. This is Lundholm’s first Olympics, and he is competing in the women’s category. “I guess I want everyone to be able to be themselves and just do what they want to do,” he said.
No trans athletes are competing on the U.S. team. In July, the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee banned transgender athletes from competing in women’s sports, citing compliance with one of Trump’s executive orders.
Regina Martínez
Regina Martinez made history in Milan as Mexico’s first woman to compete in cross-country skiing. She crossed the finish line for the women’s 10k interval in last place, welcomed by hugs from her fellow competitors
Martinez, who discovered cross-country skiing in her late 20s, now works as an ER doctor in Miami. She took up dog walking in order to help pay for her training.
“I honestly never thought I’d see so many Mexicans at a Nordic skiing event,” Martínez said. “It was amazing to be able to hear them every moment, on every climb, on every descent.”
Elana Meyers Taylor
On Feb. 16, Elana Meyers Taylor took home her sixth Olympic medal and her first gold in the monobob. She is now the most decorated female bobsledder of all time, and is now tied with speed skater Bonnie Blair for the most decorated female American Winter Olympian. Meyers Taylor, who is a mother to two young boys, said that sharing her win with her kids was the best part.
“Nobody in their right mind would say, ‘Hey, a 41-year-old woman is going to have a shot at another Olympic medal in a speed and power sport,” Meyers Taylor told NBC.
Mikaela Shiffrin
Mikaela Shiffrin, who has not medaled at the Olympics in eight years, secured gold in the women’s slalom on Wednesday. She won her first gold medal at 18 years old at the Winter Olympics in Russia, making her both the oldest and youngest U.S. woman to win Olympic gold in Alpine skiing. She is now the first U.S. skier to win three Olympic gold medals.
Shiffrin, 30, who has been hailed as “perhaps the greatest slalom Alpine skier ever,” is a four-time Olympian and has three previous medals, two gold and one silver. Slalom is a highly technical alpine skiing discipline that involves skiing between closely-spaced poles or gates. Besides her Olympic medals, Shiffrin has won a record 108 World Cup events.
Lindsey Vonn
Skier Lindsey Vonn, a three-time Olympic medalist, came out of retirement to compete in the 2026 Games. Unfortunately, Vonn broke her leg in a crash in the women’s downhill final on Feb. 8, just nine days after rupturing her ACL. Team USA has reported that Vonn is in stable condition after having surgery. Even as she was being airlifted to the hospital, Vonn was cheering on her teammate Breezy Johnson, competing alongside her.
Reflecting on her crash, Vonn wrote, “Don’t feel sad. The ride was worth the fall. When I close my eyes at night I don’t have regrets and the love I have for skiing remains. I am still looking forward to the moment when I can stand on the top of the mountain once more. And I will.”
Claudia Riegler
At 52, the Austrian snowboarder Claudia Riegler is one of the oldest athletes competing in Milan this year and has become the oldest woman Winter Olympian. “I never think about the age when I’m racing,” she told reporters.
At 30, she was dropped from the Austrian national team for being “too old,” but she fought to return with three years of independent racing and a strong performance at the World Cup in 2005. Now, two decades later, she plans to keep racing after this year’s Olympics.
The U.S. Women’s Hockey Team
The U.S. women’s hockey team won gold in a 2-1 overtime game against Canada on Feb. 19. U.S. captain Hilary Knight tied the game with roughly 2 minutes to spare with an assist from Laila Edwards, who is now the first Black woman to win an Olympic gold medal with Team USA’s women’s hockey team. USA’s Megan Keller scored the overtime goal, securing gold for her and her team.
Finally, a Historical Mention…
Surya Bonaly
This year, U.S. figure skater Ilia Malinin, nicknamed the “Quad God,” became the first skater to legally land a backflip on one skate during the team event. However, he wasn’t the first figure skater to do the trick in competition. After the International Skating Union (ISU) banned it in 1978, French skater Surya Bonaly performed an illegal backflip at the 1998 Nagano Games in Japan. She lost points for it, but the backflip cemented her legacy as one of few internationally ranked Black figure skaters in a sport with a relative lack of diversity.
