What to watch at the Winter Olympics

What to watch at the Winter Olympics

We’re just over a week from the Winter Olympics, which will kick off in Italy 4 years after they were hosted by Beijing in 2022. Winter sports don’t get a huge amount of attention in the summery climates of Australia, but we have some definite contenders to watch in these Games… So in this Squiz Shortcut, we’ll get you up to speed with:

• who the big Aussie chances are

• some of the new events

• and how to watch… 

Prefer to listen or watch?

Listen to Andrew Williams and Claire Kimball cover this topic in this Squiz Shortcut podcast episode, or check it out on YouTube - and hit subscribe while you’re at it.

Listen/watch time: 20 minutes

Squiz the Shortcut

Another Olympics, exciting… Where in Italy are the Games on?
This year’s Winter Olympics are taking place in Milano-Cortina in the Italian Alps - so we’re talking Milan, one of the world’s fashion capitals, and one of the most famous ski resorts in the world - Cortina D’Ampezzo. It’s promising to be a pretty glamorous Games… 

I’ll dig out my best trackies. When do the Games start and how can I watch?
They kick off on 6 February. Watching live might be a bit tricky for us in Oz, with most of the events happening overnight. But there’ll be plenty of highlights and re-runs during the day on Channel 9, 9Now and Stan Sport…

Got it… How many countries are taking part?
More than 3,500 athletes from 93 countries. Of those athletes, 53 of them will be Aussies. It’s our second-largest Winter Olympic team and our biggest in 12 years.

Remind me of some of our standout Winter Olympic moments…
One of the most iconic has to be speed skater Steven Bradbury staying upright and skating past the rest of the field (who’d fallen over) to take gold in Salt Lake City in 2002. 

Yep, lucking into success is now known in Oz as doing a Bradbury…
Exactly… Although what gets lost in the retelling is that Bradbury was quite strategic about it - he knew he wasn’t going to outrace them so he hung back on purpose, hoping for an opportunity. He had the same strategy in the semi-final too. 

Genius… What other moments would I remember?
Also in Salt Lake City, Alisa Camplin became a household name with a gold in freestyle aerial skiing - that was the first ever gold by an Aussie woman at the Winter Games and the first ever gold in a skiing event. A couple more: Lydia Lassila’s gold medal in 2010 after she recovered from a knee injury in 2006, and Torah Bright’s snowboarding gold the same year - there are quite a few given there’d be plenty of Aussies who have never seen snow. 

Who the big chances are for this year’s Games?
Jakara Anthony is definitely one Aussie name to watch out for. She’s the defending champion in mogul skiing - that’s a freestyle skiing event that takes place on a course with a bunch of bumps and mounds known as moguls. It’s a tough event that needs a lot of technical skill and speed. 

How is her form leading in?
Despite breaking her collarbone in late 2024, she’s back in super form - she won her 26th World Cup victory earlier this month, and she’s the World #1 heading into defending her gold medal. If she makes the final, it’ll take place at 1am AEDT on 12 February, so mark that date down if you’re only planning to get up for one event… but she’s far from the only one to watch. 

Who else should I keep my eyes peeled for?
Sticking with the moguls for a bit, Matt Graham is another name to know - he won silver in Pyeongchang in 2018, and he’s currently ranked #2 in the world. This is his final Winter Olympics, so it’s now or never for him - but by all reports, he’s in excellent form. 

How about our snowboarders?
Scotty James is a name people might know - he’s no stranger to the Winter Olympics, he first competed when he was 15 years old at Vancouver 2010, and he’s back once again. He’s a 4-time world champion at the Snowboard Halfpipe, and he’s looking for a gold medal to add to the silver and bronze he’s won in the past. 

Any others to clock in snowboarding?
Yep… There’s Valentino Guseli, he placed sixth in the halfpipe in 2022, and Tess Coady, who won bronze in the women’s slopestyle in 2022 - she’s our youngest individual winter olympics medallist ever. 

I’m guessing slopestyle isn’t a fashion contest…
Ah, no… It’s basically snowboarding down a slope with a bunch of obstacles, like a giant, snowy skateboard park - where you get points for tricks, or style points. It’s been an event since 2014. One new event attracting some attention this year is Ski Mountaineering, or Skimo.

What does Skimo involve?
It’s a combination of uphill mountain climbing and downhill skiing. Basically, athletes use special skins on the bottom of their skis to climb up a mountain and then ski back down. We’re exhausted just thinking about it…

Do we have any Aussies in that one?
Yes, we have Lara Hamilton and Philip Bellingham flying the Oz flag in skimo. That’s the only new sport making its debut this year, but there are a bunch of new events in some of the existing sports - luge is adding a women’s doubles, for example, and the skeleton is adding a mixed team relay. 

OK, more broadly, what are some of the headline events of the Games?
One of the big ones this year is the men’s ice hockey tournament. The reason this is a big deal is because NHL players - the elite players in the world - are playing in this tournament for the first time since 2014. The prediction for the gold medal game is Canada v the USA - and don’t be surprised if the success of the ice hockey romance show Heated Rivalry puts even more eyes on that grand final, which will likely come right at the end of the Games. 

Anything else to keep an eye out for?
Yep… Figure skating is always a highlight, and those in the know say that American Ilia Malinin is one to watch - he’s the only person to land a jump called the Quad Axel - that’s a jump the figure skating world previously thought was impossible. They call him the Quadgod and he’s the heavy favourite for the gold. 

Will there be an opening ceremony?
There sure will - that’s going to take place at the San Siro stadium in Milan, which football fans will know well. It’s a huge stadium, and a relatively unusual place for a Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony because it’s in an urban area. It’s one of the many locations to be featured in these Games, which are more spread out than usual…

Is there a reason for that?
Spreading out the venues at these Games is a key feature of them… Organisers decided not to build much new infrastructure, choosing instead to use a wide and spread-out range of existing venues. It means it’ll be a logistical challenge, but it should look pretty spectacular for us watching at home, with lots of glamorous locations to armchair travel to. 

What about the Winter Paralympics - when do they start?
Great question… The Winter Paralympic Games will begin a few weeks later on 6 March - we'll cover that separately when the time comes across Squiz Today and Shortcuts as well.

Who’s up next to host?
In 2030, the Games will stay in Europe, taking place in the French Alps... In the meantime, get ready for a fortnight of Aussies pretending we know all about moguls, halfpipes and quad axels. Set those alarms…

Onto our Recommendations

Reading: This ⁠Fox Sports article⁠ lists every Aussie competing in this year’s games, and which ones are considered medal chances, podium chances and so on…

Watching: This Netflix documentary on Scotty James will get you across his career, and this one on YouTube is all about Skimo…

Send us your questions: Our next episode of Ask the Squiz is out on Thursday. If you’ve got a question about the news that you’d like Claire and Andrew to tackle, email us at [email protected] or drop us a voice note here and you might hear yourself on the pod.

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