Blizzard Disrupts Milano Cortina 2026 but Fails to Stop Record Medal Spree
Wednesday’s storm postponed starts, buried landings under knee-deep drifts and wiped out training sessions across two valleys, yet it could not stop a historic rush of medals: six awarded, three sports, two venues and a string of Olympic firsts that will outlast the snow now melting on the valley floor.
Swiss Skier Ends 78-Year Alpine Slalom Drought
Loïc Meillard attacked a rutted second-run course in Bormio to give Switzerland its first men’s slalom gold since 1948, completing a personal set he began with giant-slalom silver and super-G bronze earlier in the Games. The 27-year-old from Neuchâtel trailed Norway’s Atle Lie McGrath by 0.12 s at the midway point, then watched the leader straddle a gate as visibility fell. Meillard’s clean line produced a combined 1:49.03, beating Austria’s Fabio Gstrein by 0.27 s and Norway’s Henrik Kristoffersen by 0.45 s in a race that recorded 31 DNFs among 71 starters. “When the green light flashed I knew the 78-year monkey was gone,” Meillard said.
Canadians, Italians Rewrite Freestyle Big Air Podium
Megan Oldham stomped a switch left-side 1260 mute and a forward 1440 safety to overtake defending champion Eileen Gu in a Livigno final delayed four hours while crews shoveled graupel off the in-run. The 22-year-old Ontarian totaled 182.25 points, handing Canada its first women’s Big Air title since the event debuted in Beijing. Italy’s Flora Tabanelli, competing on a torn ACL, landed a cork 1080 tail on her last jump to earn the host nation’s first Olympic freestyle medal of any color. Four women topped 90 points in round one, showing how the storm-shortened practice forced athletes to judge rotation speed on the fly.
Austria Wins First-Ever Ski Jump Super Team Gold
Jan Hörl and Stefan Embacher scored 534.0 points over two rounds to claim the debut men’s super-team event, a knockout format that pits two nations side-by-side on adjacent hills. Snow canceled the final round in Predazzo, locking Poland 11 points back and Norway 6.5 further behind. Hörl, empty-handed through six prior events, called the gold “a pressure-valve release” for an Austrian squad that arrived targeting four medals. Germany, the pre-event favorite, settled for fourth when the weather whistle ended competition.
Weather Chaos Tests Athletes and Organizers
Wednesday’s schedule was the most weather-exposed of the fortnight. Big Air training was scrubbed at dawn, women’s snowboard cross qualification shifted to Thursday, and ski jumpers warmed up twice before gusts hit 55 km/h sent them back to the team hotel. FIS race director Hannes Trinkl said contingency lights on the Bergisel hill and a 48-hour freestyle window at Mottolino kept the program alive. “Without that flex we would have lost two medal events outright,” Trinkl noted.
Records, Farewells and Medal-Table Math
Gu’s silver ties her with Kari Traa and Dale Begg-Smith for the most freestyle medals (five) in Olympic history; she can break the mark in Friday’s halfpipe. Greece’s AJ Ginnis took a final-run bow, ending a career that began on a dry slope outside Athens and produced Greece’s first World Cup podium last January. With three competition days left, Norway leads the tally (14 golds), but Switzerland’s late surge—boosted by Meillard and a women’s curling semifinal—moved it into a tie for fourth with Austria at eight golds.
Sources: FIS Results Hub; Swiss-Ski Technical Bulletin; NOAA “Science of Snow” Brief; Olympic Schedule App; Safe Slopes Foundation
Comments