Ski mountaineering made its long awaited debut on the Winter Olympic stage Thursday with a pair of snow-filled sprint events. The lung-searing, quad-burning action will continue (and conclude) Saturday in Bormio with the mixed relay.
The Stelvio Ski Centre will play host once again and a bunch of familiar faces from the sprints will vie for Olympic glory.
Included in the start list are Americans Cam Smith and Anna Gibson who’ll attempt to earn the United States its first-ever medal in SkiMo.
From the format to contenders and everything in between, here’s what you need to know heading into Saturday’s mixed relay.
Competition format
The Winter Olympic iteration of the mixed relay features six teams of two athletes — one man and one woman.
The female member of each duo lines up in two rows at the start, with specific positions determined by the Olympic Mixed Relay Ranking List, which factors in recent SkiMo World Cup and World Championship results.
Each athlete completes the course loop twice in alternating fashion — women-man-woman-man — and each loop contains an ascent and descent, as well as two transitions.
These "pit-stop" transitions involve skin removal and skin re-application. The skins serve as adhesives that enable the athletes to grip the snow and ski uphill. Their removal allows for a smooth downhill ski back to the bottom of the course.
After the descent and second transition occurs, a competitor tags in their teammate in the “handover zone,” who will then complete the same course loop. The cycle is repeated, and the squad with the fastest time wins.
The relay will take roughly 30 minutes.
The Great American hopes
In December, the United States had one final opportunity to clinch a Winter Olympic berth in ski mountaineering in Solitude, Utah. Cam Smith and Anna Gibson stepped up to the plate with two outs in the bottom of the 9th inning and smacked the ball out of the park.
The duo won the first-ever ski mountaineering World Cup event to take place on American snow. Not only that, it was the first ski mountaineering Cup event that the U.S. won in the history of the sport.
Heading into the mixed relay, the U.S. trailed Canada by a single point in the Olympic Mixed Relay Ranking list. The country that performed better in Solitude would receive a final continental quota spot and move onto the 2026 Winter Games.
A seasoned veteran in the sport, Smith is the most decorated American SkiMo’er of all time. The Rockford, Illinois native has won 11 U.S. SkiMo national championships. He also became the first American to finish in the top 10 at a Cup event and the first to earn a Cup medal, which came in 2022.
Meanwhile, Gibson was recruited to the sport by Smith in June of 2025 (seven months ago). According to Gibson, his pitch was direct and simple.
“Look, if the answer is no, tell me now, and I'll never bother you about this again. But you should try SkiMo,” he said.
“And then he went into this whole tangent about how close the U.S. was to making the Olympics,” Gibson told NBC Sports. “He explained how the Olympic disciplines work, and why he thought I should do it. I just could feel his excitement about it.
“It became apparent that this was going to be a really fun experience for me. I was going to have the opportunity to maybe become an Olympian, which is the coolest thing ever.”
Although she’s technically new to competitive SkiMo (her first event was that World Cup in Solitude) she’s been participating in the different aspects of it recreationally since she was young. Cross-country skiing, boot-packing, Alpine skiing.
Smith and Gibson competed in Thursday’s sprint and exceeded expectations. Neither are known as short distance SkiMo’ers, yet they both made the semifinals.
The mixed relay is their newly baked bread and butter. They’re not favorites in the event, but if they manage to sneak onto the podium, it would be one of the great stories in American Winter Olympic history.
The contenders
France’s Emily Harrop and Thibault Anselmet are the team to beat in Bormio. The tandem are the two-time defending mixed relay world champions, and they won the Cup event at the Boi Taull ski resort in Spain that took place earlier this month.
Harrop is widely considered the best SkiMo’er alive today. She’s been the number one ranked sprint racer four consecutive years, and she earned silver in her Olympic debut, narrowly missing out on a gold. Her partner Anselmet took bronze in the Sprint, and together, he and Harrop make a formidable pair.
Spain claimed its first Winter Olympic gold medal in 54 years on Thursday thanks to Oriol Cardona Coll’s hardware-worthy efforts. A two-time defending sprint world champion, Cardona Coll is the male division’s version of Harrop: likely, the best.
He’s partnered with Ana Alonso Rodriguez — Thursday’s bronze medalist — on a number of occasions, including the 2025 World Championships, when they took silver in the mixed relay. Alonso decided to forgo surgery after tearing her ACL and MCL in a cycling accident in October (she was hit by a car) for a chance to compete at her first Winter Games. Despite the injury, she’s proved to still be a force on the SkiMo circuit.
Italy is another team to watch out for given their storied success in the sport, that they’re competing on home snow and they have the dynamic Giulia Murada — who finished fourth in Thursday’s sprint, just off the podium.
Gold medalist Marianne Fatton and teammate Jon Kister of Switzerland also can’t be overlooked.
How to watch
The Winter Olympic debut of ski mountaineering’s mixed relay event starts at 7:30 a.m. ET and will stream live on Peacock and NBCOlympics.com.