Against the rolling Italian Alps, the 2026 Winter Games delivered exactly what Olympic Alpine skiing promises at its best: triumph, heartbreak, history and drama.

The sport’s 10 Olympic events unfolded in Cortina d’Ampezzo and Bormio, two storied ski venues steeped in World Cup history. The women took on the Olympia delle Tofane, a course as beautiful as it is unforgiving, while the men battled down the Stelvio in Bormio, one of the most technically demanding tracks in the sport. 

No storyline loomed larger than Mikaela Shiffrin’s. Four years removed from a stunning series of DNFs in Beijing, and carrying the burden of outsized expectations, she returned to the Olympic stage with something to prove: to critics, to fans and above all, to herself. 

She did not disappoint.

Neither did the rest of the United States ski Alpine ski team. The nation matched its combined Alpine medal total from the previous two Olympics, fueled by breakthrough performances and veteran resolve. 

Meanwhile, Switzerland claimed a treasure trove of golden (and silver and bronze) hardware. Federica Brignone defied age and injury. Lucas Pinheiro Braathen did something that's never been done for Brazil. 

And Lindsey Vonn’s emotional, devastating crash underscored the razor-thin line between chasing one last dream and paying the ultimate physical price.

Here are the biggest takeaways from the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Olympics.

Mikaela Shiffrin entered Cortina carrying the weight of the world’s expectations on her shoulders. She left wearing slalom gold around her neck.

For Shiffrin, the Olympic medal was her first since 2018 and the fourth of her career. She now stands alone as the only American in Alpine skiing history to hold three Olympic gold medals, breaking a record she previously held with Ted Ligety and Andrea Mead Lawrence.

Her margin of victory, 1.50 seconds, was the largest in any Olympic Alpine skiing event since 1998.

“This is a moment I've been pretty scared of for a long time,” she told NBC’s Cara Banks post-race. “Honestly, the skiing is what I cared about. Of course a medal and gold, that's a dream come true. But at some point this week, I just said, like, stop dreaming. Just ski.”

The path to gold for Shiffrin began the moment her 2022 Beijing Olympics concluded. She was a strong favorite to come away with hardware in multiple events at those Games, but shockingly did not finish (DNF'd) three of them, including the slalom, her strongest discipline.

Still, she didn’t miss a beat on the World Cup circuit — the highest level of Alpine skiing competition — collecting 35 victories between the 2022 Games and the 2026 Games and becoming the first Alpine skier in history to eclipse 100 Cup wins. 

Despite the dominance, and despite her already impressive Olympics resume, critics, media and fans clamored for a GOAT-level performance in Cortina. It didn’t come in the team combined or the giant slalom. The slalom was her last opportunity. 

The 30-year-old delivered on the biggest stage while under as much pressure as any Olympian who competed in the 2026 Games, adding another historic chapter to her ever growing legacy. 

Before the 2026 Winter Games, no nation ever had more than one Alpine skier claim three medals at the same Olympics.

Three Swiss athletes — yes, three! — accomplished the feat in Bormio.

It began with breakout super-duper star Franjo von Allmen. The 24-year-old conquered the downhill, crushed the team combined and slayed the super-G. He scored the fabled golden hat trick, becoming the fourth Alpine skier (and third man) in Olympic history to do so.

Marco Odermatt, widely considered the best skier alive, picked up a silver and two bronze medals. He narrowly missed the podium in the downhill, placing 4th, which would have given him four medals. 

Loic Meillard added to the Swiss bliss, sharing bronze with Odermatt in the team combined, tying Odi for second in the giant slalom and winning the slalom outright. rami who tore her ACL a few months before the Games, securing silver in slalom. Finally, Tanguy Nef, the 29-year-old slalom specialist who partnered with von Allmen to form "Team All or Nefing,” took gold in the team combined. 

When it was all said and done, the Swiss men won four out of 5 gold medals contested at the 2026 Winter Olympics and snagged eight of the 15 total medals up for grabs. That eight figure tied an all-time record for one nation during a single Games in Alpine skiing (Austria in 1998 and 2006).

Federica Brignone (ITA) did the unthinkable when she won Olympic super-G gold at the 2026 Winter Olympics. The “Snow Tiger” did the unthinkable again 72 hours later, roaring to her second gold medal of the Games, this time in the women's giant slalom.

What made the upset(s) so stunning was that she pulled them off despite not being at full strength. 

Days before the super-G, Brignone was unable to ski because of immense pain in her left leg — lingering effects from the multiple bones she fractured and torn ACL she suffered in a crash at the Italian National Championships in April 2025. 

Ten months, two surgeries and extensive rehabilitation later, she managed to rally (and then some) for the super-G, becoming the oldest gold medalist — man or woman — in Alpine skiing's Olympic history. Shortly after, the 35-year-old broke her own record in the GS, giving her five total Olympic medals.

Brignone's races in Cortina were just the fourth and fifth she competed in after an almost year-long absence.

“I can tell you this, I would exchange both gold medals for no injuries," she revealed.

The United States came away from the 2026 Winter Olympics with four medals in Alpine skiing. That number matched the total the Americans earned in the 2018 and 2022 Games combined. 

Breezy Johnson set the tone early, winning downhill gold on the opening weekend. One of the lasting memories from that day will, no doubt, be a helicopter airlifting Lindsey Vonn off the Tofane piste following her scary crash, the rolling Dolomites filling the sky in the background. 

But so too will an emotional Breezy sitting in the leader’s chair. And then standing on the podium with her gold medal. Revealing in a press conference that it broke (an ensuing trend). Then, a few short days later, being proposed to by her boyfriend-turned fiance Connor Watkins.

Johnson emerged from the Games as triumphantly as anyone you’ll find, both on and off the slopes.

Jackie Wiles and Paula Moltzan kept the good vibes rolling when they claimed bronze in the team combined. Wiles, a longtime leader on the U.S. Ski team, announced that the 2026 Winter Games would be her final one, which made her fourth place finish in the downhill a few days prior an even tougher pill to swallow. 

Wiles' partnership with Moltzan, who came into the Games enjoying her best World Cup season to date, proved to be mutually beneficial. Strong downhill and slalom efforts brought the duo we never knew we needed Olympic hardware. For the first time in both of their careers.

Ryan Cochran-SilverSiegle developed a unique formula for capturing a medal in Bormio: Show up. Get food poisoning. Crush the super-G. The performance earned RCS his second super-G silver in a row at the Olympic Games. This time he did it with his fiancé Jessie watching from the grandstands, along with his mom Barbara Cochran, who won gold in the 1952 Sapporo Games 54 years to the day prior to Ryan’s accomplishment.

The pièce de résistance — or rather, “piste” de résistance — was of course Shiffrin. She won gold in her discipline (slalom) in dominant fashion to cap off the Games' Alpine skiing festivities. 

No Alpine skier, man or woman, in the history of the sport had ever earned an Olympic medal of any kind while representing a South American nation… that was, until Lucas Pinheiro Braathen defiantly flipped the script.

The 25-year-old pulverized the men’s giant slalom field in Run 1 amid heavy snow, leading second place by a whopping 0.95 seconds, the third-largest margin since the GS became a two-run event in 1968. Winning a full event by that much, let alone a singular run, is rare.

"LPB" sat firmly in the driver’s seat at the outset of Run 2, and he refused to let go of the wheel. There was a moment he slipped and almost fell in Sector 3, but even despite the treacherous conditions, Pinheiro Braathen held on to complete the gold medal-worthy performance.

“I've done so much, I've sacrificed so much by daring to pave my own way in order to reach my own dream," he told Heather Cox post-race while fighting back tears. "Not others' dream, my dream. And this is my dream.”

Wearing the 13th bib in the women’s downhill, Lindsey Vonn (USA) crashed moments into her run. The 41-year-old clipped a race gate, twisted in the air and thudded hard onto the Tofane snow. 

Medical personnel rushed to attend to the St. Paul, Minnesota native who could be heard screaming in pain. After a lengthy course hold, she was airlifted off the piste by a helicopter for the second time in two weeks. Vonn "completely ruptured" her ACL at a World Cup event in Crans Montana, Switzerland a week prior.

Despite the ailment, she remained confident that she would be able to race the Olympic downhill, participating in intense workouts and completing multiple downhill training runs. 

The crash was a heartbreaking conclusion to Vonn’s 2026 Winter Olympic story. Competing at a final Games was the reason she came out of retirement in the first place. Additionally, she had been throwing down arguably the best skiing of her career. Up until the Crans Montana crash, Vonn reached the podium in seven out of her eight Cup races during the 2025-26 season and won two downhills, becoming the Olympic gold medal favorite in the process. 

Vonn posted several updates in the aftermath of the injury. Up to this writing, she has undergone five surgeries to repair a complex fracture in her leg, which she nearly had to have amputated. 

“Please, don’t feel sad,” Vonn wrote in an Instagram caption of a video of her skiing down the Tofane. “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. 💪🏻❤️"