You don’t know ski mountaineering, aka skimo? Here’s everything you need to know about the new Olympic sport.
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The 2026 Winter Games in Milan Cortina will have more medals than in previous years, thanks to eight new events. The most notable addition is ski mountaineering – or “skimo” – an entirely new Olympic sport.
Skimo is an endurance test in which athletes ski up steep mountains and then run back down. It combines the physical challenge of mountaineering with the technical speed of skiing. With three gold medals on the line, it’s the biggest change to the Winter Olympics schedule in years. Here’s everything you need to know about skimo and how, when and where to watch.
Meet skimo, the new Olympic sport
As its name suggests, skimo is a new ski event. Unlike other ski races, this one involves uphills and downhills, combining the endurance of Nordic skiing with the daring of alpine racing, with a pinch of NASCAR pit crew feeling on top, as competitors transition from uphill to downhill.
A skimo race begins at the bottom of the hill. Skiers start with mat-like strips called “skins” on the bottom of their skis, which help them grip the snow as they run uphill. As if cross-country skiing wasn’t enough of a test of pain tolerance, let’s make things more difficult and run uphill!
As riders approach the top of the skimo course, there will be a section too steep for skis, so riders will jump off their skis, throw them on their backs, and climb the hill with their boots on. This grueling section is called “boot packaging”.
Finally, at the top, racers will get back on their skis, remove skins with astonishing efficiency, then race down the slope through a series of gates to the finish line. This downhill section will resemble a giant slalom race, for those used to alpine skiing.
Before going down, you need to skin and go up.
Sylvie Husson and David Lory/AFP/Getty ImagesWhat are the three skimo events?
There are men’s and women’s sprint events, as well as a mixed relay.
The sprint events will end faster than expected. Runners will climb approximately 230 feet to the summit on both uphill sections, then descend to the finish line in less than three minutes.
The mixed relay will feature teams made up of one man and one woman. Each runner will complete the course twice, with the woman completing the first and third stages and the man completing the second and final stages. Since skimo racers use ski poles, there is no handover in a skimo relay: a simple tag is enough to pass the race to your teammate. The team with the fastest cumulative time wins.
The mixed relay course is longer than the sprint races and, coincidentally, has a bootpack section on the second climb but not the first. The total duration of the mixed relay race should be approximately 30 minutes.
When will the skimo events take place at the 2026 Olympic Games?
The men’s and women’s sprint events will take place on Thursday February 19 at the Stelvio ski center in Bormio. All skimo sprints will take place on the same day, from the first heats to the gold medal final, for both men and women.
Each peloton is made up of 18 competitors who race in three heats of six. The top three in each heat, plus the fastest three who did not automatically qualify, advance to the semi-finals. The two fastest from each semi-final, plus the next two fastest times, create a field of six for the skimo final.
There are no heats for the mixed relay event, just a final, consisting of 12 to 18 teams. The men’s and women’s mixed relay finals will take place on Saturday February 21.
Cam Smith will partner Anna Gibson for Team USA in the mixed skimo relay competition.
Valerio Pennicino/Getty ImagesWhich countries are the best for skimo?
Ski mountaineering began in the Alps, so you won’t be surprised when I tell you that France, Italy, and Switzerland have historically dominated the ski mountaineering scene. At last year’s Ski Mountaineering World Championships, France won nine medals (four gold), Switzerland seven (three gold) and Italy finished third overall with four medals.
The current men’s world champion is the Spaniard Oriol Cardona Coll. He is the favorite for the gold medal in Milan Cortina for the men’s sprint. Frenchwoman Emily Harrop is the favorite in the women’s sprint.
Who is on the US skimo team?
Anna Gibson and Cam Smith will represent Team USA in the mixed relay race. They became the first American team to win a mixed relay event in the World Cup. Their victory in Solitude, Utah, was not only nationally historic, but also qualified them for the Olympics.
Gibson is a 26-year-old from Jackson, Wyoming, with a background in trail running and Nordic skiing. A native of Rockford, Illinois, Smith is 30 years old and the closest the United States has to a skimo veteran. He is an 11-time U.S. national ski mountaineering champion and a five-time North American ski mountaineering champion.
