Short track at the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics continues Monday, Feb. 16, with three events: the men's 500m qualifying heats; the women's 1000m quarterfinals, semifinals, and finals; and the men's relay semifinals. 

Skaters are scheduled to take the ice at 5 a.m. E.T.

All short track events are available to watch on mobile, tablet and connected TV devices via the Peacock, NBC and NBC Sports apps.

The day begins with the quarterfinal round of the women's 1000m.

Four groups of five skaters each will compete for a spot in the semifinals. The two fastest athletes in each quarterfinal and the two fastest 3rd-placed skaters overall advance.

Canadian and reigning Crystal Globe champion Courtney Sarault has collected one silver (mixed relay) and one bronze (500m) so far in Milan. On Monday, she'll look to complete her collection with gold in what's possibly her best event. Canada last won Olympic women's short track gold in 1998, when Annie Perault topped the 500m podium.

The world No. 1 in the distance, Sarault won three of four 1000m races on the 2025 World Tour, finishing 2nd in the fourth. She also skated to silver behind Belgium's Hanne Desmet at the most recent world championships.

At the 2022 Games, Desmet took 1000m bronze to become the first Belgian to make an Olympic short track podium and the second Belgian woman to claim a Winter Olympic medal in any sport after pairs figure skater Micheline Lannoy in 1948.

Reigning Olympic silver medalist Choi Min-Jeong is back to defend her place on the podium. She and South Korean teammate Kim Gil-Li claimed one 1000m silver apiece on the 2025 World Tour.

Sarault, Desmet, Choi, and Kim all won their qualifying heats Saturday, as did Italian short track legend Arianna Fontana and the Netherlands' Xandra Velzeboer, the world's best 500m skater. Velzeboer won her signature event in Milan.

Kristen Santos-Griswold was the only American skater to advance beyond the qualifying round. World No. 3 Corinne Stoddard lost control in the final stretch of her qualifying heat and did not move on. Julie Letai placed last in her heat.

Santos-Griswold won the world title in the distance in 2024, the spring before she went on to claim the 2024-25 Crystal Globe trophy, but dealt with collarbone and back injuries this season that hindered her performance on the World Tour this season. She skated to two individual bronze medals at the tour's second stop, but neither were in the 1000m. 

As the two-time reigning Crystal Globe champion, Canada's William Dandjinou entered the 2026 Games as the gold medal favorite in all three individual events. He missed the podium in the first two. 

Dandjinou, 24, has at least one world championship medal in each of the five men's events except the 500m. This season, however, he won the first three 500m races on the World Tour, finishing 2nd in the fourth and final edition. He and teammate Steven Dubois, the reigning world champion and Beijing bronze medalist in the distance, could record the second Olympic short track 1-2 finish in Canadian history.

Dandjinou's one loss this season came against Andrew Heo, who became the first American man to win an individual top-level short track race in 11 years. Heo's second-best finish in an individual race this season was 14th.

Reigning Olympic champion Liu Shaoang is back to defend his title, but this time, he'll be wearing a different nation's colors. At the 2018 and 2022 Games, he and his brother, Shaolin Sandor, skated to all of Hungary's four Olympic medals. Shortly after the Beijing Games, however, they switched allegiances to their father's native China.

The qualifying round features eight heats of four skaters each. The two fastest athletes in each heat and the four fastest 3rd-placed skaters qualify for the quarterfinals.

The Canadian men have won four of the last seven Olympic relays. With Dandjinou and Dubois leading the relay squad in Milan, they could very well take a fifth title.

China enters the competition with a new lineup boasting proven golden talent. In 2018, Liu Shaoang powered Hungary to Olympic gold in the event in 2018, the country's first Winter Olympic title in any sport, and Lin Xiaojun (formerly Lim Hyo-Jun) took 1500m gold for host South Korea. Both now race for China, which claimed men's relay silver thrice on this year's World Tour.

Host country Italy, which took bronze at the 2022 Games, finished 3rd in all four of the season's World Tour races.

The two fastest teams in each semifinal qualify for the A Final, and the 3rd and 4th teams qualify for the B Final.