At long last, Olympic short track has arrived.

Competition begins Tuesday, Feb. 10, with the qualifying rounds for the women's 500m and the women's 1000m, as well as the mixed relay quarterfinals, semifinals, and finals. 

For some skaters — including those from the United States — Tuesday's competition will mark their first since the 2025 World Tour ended in late November. 

Entering the Olympic tournament, Canada boasts the world's top-ranked man and woman skaters, as well as the season's overall relay title. 

Both the men's and women's events Tuesday will feature eight heats with four skaters each. The best two athletes in each heat and the four fastest 3rd-placed athletes qualify for the quarterfinals. 

Twelve teams compete in the mixed relay quarterfinals, and the field shrinks as they progress through the semifinals and finals. The event has only been contested once on the Olympic level, making its debut in 2022.

All live streams also are available to watch on mobile, tablet and connected TV devices via the Peacock, NBC and NBC Sports apps.

Canadian skater Courtney Sarault dominated the women's World Tour circuit this season, making all 12 A Finals between the three individual distances and winning five of them en route to her first Crystal Globe trophy, awarded annually to the best skater (or team, in the case of the relays) in the men's and women's fields. But with just one win in four 500m races, the shortest sprint is her weakest of the three (note: she still finished the season as the world No. 2 in the distance).

Sarault's only 500m gold of the season came against her fiercest challenger, Dutch skater Xandra Velzeboer, at the final World Tour stop. Before that race, Velzeboer had won four straight races on the international level, a streak which began at the 2025 World Championships. The 24 year old has skated to three of the last four world titles in the distance, falling to second behind Canadian Kim Boutin in 2024. Boutin will also race Tuesday.

If Velzeboer wins the event in Milan, she would be the first Dutch woman to take 500m gold on the Olympic level. Sarault would be the first Canadian woman to do so since Annie Perreault in 1998.

Also competing in the women's 500m heats are two-time reigning Olympic champ Arianna Fontana, 2024-25 Crystal Globe champion Kristen Santos-Griswold, and current overall world No. 2 Corinne Stoddard.

In Beijing, Fontana became Italy's — and short track's — most decorated Winter Olympian with her 11th medal. She returns to the Olympic stage for the sixth and final time in Milan, two decades after her Olympic debut at age 15 at the last Italian-hosted Games. A hip injury sidelined her through much of this year's World Tour, but a comeback 1500m victory at the 2026 European Championships proved Fontana's determination closer her career with a bang on home ice. 

The United States' most promising medal contenders since John-Henry Krueger in 2018, Stoddard and Santos-Griswold will both make their second Olympic appearances in Milan.

Stoddard enters Olympic competition riding the high of a career-best World Tour campaign where she collected eight individual medals (including 2 silver and 1 bronze in the 500m), finishing the season ranked 2nd overall.

Shortly after the 2022 Games, Santos-Griswold considered retiring from the sport and took a brief hiatus. Once she decided to continue competing, she became the second American after Apolo Anton Ohno to win a World Cup race at all three individual distances (2023-24 season), earned a medal in each of her five events at the 2024 World Championships, and skated to nine podium finishes on the 2024-25 World Tour en route to her first Crystal Globe trophy. 

Despite facing a 2025 calendar year riddled with health issues — including a stomach flu during the 2025 World Short Track Speed Skating Championships and a back injury that sidelined her during this year’s national championships — Santos-Griswold is the world No. 4 behind Stoddard in the 500m.

Similar to his counterpart Sarault, William Dandjinou earned his second straight men's Crystal Globe this season but struggled most in what will be his first event in Milan. 

Over the course of three years, Dandjinou flew from being Canada’s sixth-best short track skater — missing the five-man 2022 Olympic team just by one spot — to the world’s best. On this year’s World Tour circuit, the 24-year-old won seven of his 12 individual races. In the 1000m, however, he won just one of four, made the B Final in two others, and missed the final round altogether at World Tour No. 3. Still, he owns one world title and one Four Continents Championships title in the distance, both from 2024. 

Olympic veteran Steven DuBois, who claimed a medal of every color in his Olympic debut in Beijing (none in the 1000m), finished the season close to Dandjinou in the World Tour standings, ranked 3rd overall and 4th in the 1000m — one spot ahead of Dandjinou.

Three skaters from three different nations may stand in their way: hometown favorite Pietro Sighel, 18-year-old Rim Jong-Un, and Beijing bronze medalist Liu Shaoang.

Born in Trento, Italy, about two-and-a-half hours from the Milano Ice Skating Arena, Sighel earned a medal of every color in the 1000m on the World Cup this season. The 26 year old enters Tuesday's competition as the world No. 1 in the distance and the world No. 2 overall.

Rim, who competes for longtime short track juggernaut South Korea, stormed onto the World Tour scene this season, winning his first-ever race on the circuit (1500m). He continued to surprise as the season progressed, claiming a silver and a gold in the 1000m. He sits in 2nd behind Sighel in the 1000m standings.

Liu and his brother, Liu Shaolin Sandor, singlehandedly put Hungary on the short track map at the last two Winter Games, contributing to each of the country’s four total Olympic medals in the sport. Shortly after the Beijing Games, however, the two, who were born in Hungary but whose father is Chinese, announced their decision to shift allegiances in November 2022. Liu Shaoang finished the season with two 1000m medals, one silver and one bronze.

With the best skaters in both the men's and women's field and three World Tour medals this season, Canada stands a good chance at unseating Beijing mixed relay champion China, but both the Netherlands and South Korea also skated to the podium thrice during the 2025 campaign. Each of the three countries claimed just one gold.

After winning the event at the first World Tour, China missed each of the next three podiums.

Italy, which earned silver in 2022, finished the season ranked 7th in the event. Beijing bronze medalist Hungary ranked 12th.