After years of preparation, the Milan Cortina Games are here, with athletes from around the world descending on Italy to go for the gold.

There’s a lot that goes into The Games, so here is everything you need to know about this year’s Winter Olympics.

The sites

This is the first time that two host cities are hosting the Olympics and the third time that Italy has been a host. The last two Italian games were in Cortina d’Ampezzo in 1956 and Turin in 2006.

There will be 116 medal events in 16 sports this year. The newest event is ski mountaineering, with new events adding to existing sports, such as women’s doubles in luge, women’s large hill ski jumping, mixed skeleton, men’s and women’s dual moguls freestyle skiing and finally Alpine skiing team combined.

The events will be held at 15 venues around Italy. Ice hockey, figure skating, speedskating and short track will be in Milan and the surrounding areas.

Cortina will be the site of bobsled, skeleton, luge, curling and other sports.

The opening ceremony will be in Milan at San Siro Stadium.

The athletes

There will be thousands of athletes in Italy representing 90 countries, about 2,900 individuals, organizers said.

While a majority will be representing a country, Russian and Belarusian athletes will compete as Individual Neutral Athletes, or AIN. Both were banned by the IOC after the invasion of Ukraine.

The medals

The medals will be divided into two halves — one is smooth, the other has a granular texture, organizers said. They have the Olympic rings on one side and the Milan Cortina logo on the other, along with the specific event. They were made by the country’s state mint.

The mascots

There are two mascots for the Milan Cortina Olympics, one for the Winter Games and the Paralympics, named Tina and Milo. They are “the first openly Gen Z mascots,” NPR said.

They are stoat siblings. A stoat is a mountain mammal from the weasel family.

They were designed by students at the Istituto Comprensivo of Taverna and were among the 1,600 ideas submitted by primary and secondary students in Italy, according to NPR.

They are joined by The Flo, “six little snowdrops,” or flowers that represent rebirth.

©2026 Cox Media Group