OLYMPICS: US to send largest Winter Games team to Milano Cortina with 232 athletes

A group of 98 veteran Olympians, including ski star Mikaela Shiffrin, will lead the U.S. delegation at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milano Cortina, the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC) announced on Monday. The United States is preparing to send a record-breaking 232 athletes to next month’s Games.

This will be the largest U.S. Winter Olympic team in history, surpassing the 228 athletes who competed in Pyeongchang in 2018. The roster is evenly split, featuring 115 women and 117 men.

“We have a lot of confidence in the 2026 team because our winter sport programs have made significant progress over the quad,” said Rocky Harris, the USOPC Chief of Sport & Athlete Services. “We made an intentional effort to focus on winter sports.”

Harris added that the United States has invested heavily in winter sports through increased funding for coaching, athlete stipends, and advanced technology.

Despite the country’s dominance in the Summer Olympics, the United States has only topped the Winter Olympic medal table once, back in 1932. In Beijing 2022, the U.S. finished third overall.

Among the team’s most decorated athletes is Canadian-born monobob champion Kaillie Humphries, who switched allegiance to the U.S. before the 2022 Games. Humphries has won three Olympic gold medals. Alpine skiing star Mikaela Shiffrin and snowboarding sensation Chloe Kim each have two gold medals.

Bobsledder Elana Meyers Taylor leads the team in overall Olympic medals, having earned three silver and two bronze medals across four previous Olympic appearances.

She will be joined by six other athletes competing in their fourth Olympics, including Humphries, figure skater Evan Bates, snowboarders Nick Baumgartner and Faye Thelen, ice hockey player Hilary Knight, and alpine skier Lindsey Vonn. -Reporting by Amy Tennery in New YorkEditing by Christian Radnedge/Reuters