Retirements, allegiance changes, new stars, oh my! 

The Olympic short track landscape looks much different than it did in Beijing, promising an action-packed competition with the potential for historic performances and the emergence of new champions.

Here's a look at some of the major developments from the last four years.

Perhaps the most impactful short track roster changes happened in Hungary, which saw both its two most successful Winter Olympic athletes and its coach change allegiances from Hungary to China just months after the Beijing Games.

Brothers Liu Shaoang and Liu Shaolin Sandor, who were born in Hungary but whose father is Chinese, announced their decision to relocate in November 2022 — four months after Zhang Jing, Hungary’s national team head coach of 10 years, made her own move to coach the Chinese squad. 

The switch likely will deal a significant blow to Hungary’s short track program, as the brothers singlehandedly have 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. In 2018, they powered Hungary to its first short track team gold with a win in the 5000m relay — a performance they replicated in Beijing. The prize also was Hungary’s first-ever Winter Olympic gold and its first Winter Olympic medal since 1980. Also in Beijing, the Lius took home bronze in the mixed relay, and Shaoang earned an individual bronze in the 1000m. 

There also have been a series of notable retirements since the Beijing Games, including Canadian greats Pascal Dion and Charles Hamelin. Hamelin, a three-time Olympic champion, was the face of Canadian short track for almost two decades, winning 38 medals at the world championships and a nation-leading four Olympic golds. In Beijing, he and Dion helped Canada to its fourth men’s 5000m relay win in seven Olympics. The victory made Hamelin the oldest short track medalist in Olympic history. 

Maame Biney, who became the first Black woman to make the U.S. Olympic short track team in 2018, also hung up her skates following the 2022 Games. The 25-year-old announced her retirement in October 2024 after two years of battling knee injuries. 

Many Olympic short track medalists from Beijing are expected to compete in Milan Cortina.

Arianna Fontana, Olympic short track’s most successful athlete and Italy’s most decorated Winter Olympian, will return to the Olympic stage for the sixth time, exactly 20 years after making her debut at the last Italian Olympics, hosted in Turin in 2006. Though a hip injury sidelined her through much of the 2025 season, hampering her efforts to make the Olympic Italian speed skating team as well, her presence as a seasoned veteran and short track legend may have an affect the women's field.

Fontana, 35, also will be one of Italy's four flagbearers.

Her fiercest rival, the Netherlands’ Suzanne Schulting, also plans to compete in both disciplines, though an ankle injury she sustained in March 2024 impeded her ability to compete in short track during the 2024-25 season. She again focused on speed skating during the 2025-26 season but made both teams in the end.

Three-time Olympic champion Choi Min-Jeong, who beat Fontana (silver) and Schulting (bronze) to gold in the 1500m in Beijing, will return to the Olympic oval in 2026 as well. 

On the men’s side, Canada’s Steven Dubois, who made the podium three times during his Olympic debut in Beijing, hopes to repeat his performance after a dominant 2024-25 season in which he became world champion in four different events: the 500m, 1000m, 5000m relay and mixed relay. He finished the 2025 World Tour circuit ranked 3rd overall.

After he was named to Canada’s Olympic reserve for the Beijing Games, William Dandjinou almost gave up on short track. Now, he’s one of the most dangerous skaters on the oval. During the 2024-25 ISU Short Track World Tour season alone, the 6-foot-2-inch skater won eight gold medals, becoming the first Canadian to earn the Crystal Globe at the end of the campaign. He ended the season ranked 1st in the 1000m and 1500m and 2nd in the 500m behind only fellow Canadian Dubois. He then repeated as Crystal Globe champion in 2025.

Historically, Italy has not been the strongest nation in the Olympic short track pool — that is, until Fontana came along. The short track phenom has secured 11 of Italy’s 15 total medals in the sport since her debut in front of another home crowd at the Torino Games in 2006. There, she became the youngest Italian to win a Winter Olympic medal when she helped Italy to a bronze in the 3000m relay. At 34 years old, Fontana remained in the top 10 in each of the three individual distances during the 2024-25 ISU Short Track World Tour. A year later, she is poised to become the first short track skater to compete in six Olympics and could become the oldest woman to make an Olympic podium in the sport.

In the running on the men’s side is Pietro Sighel, who aided in Italy’s silver finish in the mixed relay and bronze finish in the 5000m relay in Beijing. The 26-year-old skater was a consistent presence in the 2024-25 World Tour, ranking third in the 500m, sixth in the 1000m and fourth in the 1500m by the end of the campaign. He finished this year as the World No. 2, ranked between Dandjinou and Dubois.

Those two Olympic veterans lead a young Italian squad marked by up-and-coming athletes like Elisa Confortola and Thomas Nadalini, both of whom currently are 23 years old and crept their way into the top 10 by the end of both of the last two World Tours.

With two veteran retirements and loads of fresh talent, the United States' short track squad is bound to look much different in Milan Cortina. Here are some athletes to keep an eye on as the 2026 Winter Olympics approach.

Santos-Griswold hopes the third time’s the charm

After two fourth-place finishes came in between Kristen Santos-Griswold and an Olympic medal — one at Olympic Trials for the 2018 Games and one in the final lap of the women’s 1000m in Beijing — the skater was left wondering whether or not she had a future in the sport. Ultimately, she decided to stick with it, and since then, her potential has become reality. 

During the 2022-23 season, Santos-Griswold skated to the podium at each of the six World Cup stops. During her 2023-24 campaign, she became the second American after Apolo Ohno to win a World Cup race in all three individual distances and secured medals in all five events at the 2024 World Speed Skating Championships.

Her success didn’t stop there. Last season, the now-31-year-old collected nine individual podium finishes in six World Tour competitions, three of which came at the final stop on the tour at the exact venue in Milan which will host Olympic short track in February. There, she was awarded her first Crystal Globe, officially earning the title of the best short track skater in the world.

Though short track’s unique format means races can be decided by the slightest mistake —  even if it’s someone else’s, as Santos-Griswold found out in Beijing — she isn’t letting that stop her from climbing her way back to the Olympic roster. And it helps that she seems to be at the peak of her athletic career.

A spritely young squad

Five of the eight U.S. skaters heading to Milan Cortina are under the age of 25. Three have never seen Olympic ice before, and none have won a medal. That could easily change behind behind Santos-Griswold, Corinne Stoddard, and Andrew Heo, all of whom will make their second Olympic appearances in February.

Stoddard enters her second Olympics following a personal-best World Tour campaign where she collected eight individual medals (3 silver, 5 bronze) and finished the season ranked 2nd overall. This year marked the first time the 24-year-old has skated to silver twice or more on the World Tour. 

Though a string of health issues hampered her success during the 2025 calendar year, Santos-Griswold remains one of the world's best skaters, finishing the 2025 World Tour circuit ranked 7th globally. 

Heo capped off his 2025 World Tour with his first-ever podium finish on the circuit, a gold in the 500m, becoming the first U.S. man to win a top-level individual race in 11 years. His previous-best finish in any World Tour race was 4th, and his previous best this season was 14th.

Their greenness could be a detriment against short track giants like Fontana and Dubois, but the addition of some fresh talent also could serve to benefit a U.S. squad which hasn’t seen an Olympic medal since John Henry-Krueger’s 1000m silver in 2018 (or an Olympic gold since Apolo Ohno’s 500m gold in 2006).