Winners and Losers of the 2026 Winter Olympics at Milano Cortina

Another Olympic Games has come and gone, and this one didn't disappoint. 

Like any other Olympics, there was joy, sorrow, controversy, and screwups that left us scratching our heads. 

Norway topped the medal table for the fourth Winter Games in a row, and broke the record for most golds at a Winter Games with 18. 

That was to be expected. But many of the other predictions going into this event were wrong, showing us once again that anything can happen on Olympic ice and snow. 

In the end, Team USA improved on its previous two Winter Olympics showings, coming in second to Norway with 33 total medals. 

Here are the biggest winners and losers at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milano Cortina.

Winner: Alysa Liu

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The U.S. figure skating team was slated to do very well here, and they did — at first. 

A strong showing in the team event gave them the edge over Japan to win gold, but things unravelled from there. Ice dancers Madison Chock and Evan Bates called their silver medal "bittersweet" as they also dealt with a scoring controversy. Then, in what may have been the biggest shock of the Games, overwhelming favorite for men's singles gold Ilia Malinin fell several times during his free skate, finishing eighth.

In the women's singles event, unfortunate falls kept Amber Glenn and Isabeau Levito from scoring highly, leaving Alysa Liu as Team USA's last hope to end the competition on a high note.

She delivered. The 2025 world champion finished the short program in third and ended the competition with a gorgeous free skate that gave her the gold, the first for Team USA since 2002. What's more, she did it on her own terms.

"Being able to do it my way on the big stage like this has been my dream," she told NBC after her win.

With her two-toned hair and her relaxed demeanor, Liu proved that, even in an unforgiving sport like figure skating, she could succeed while being unapologetically herself.

Loser: Lindsey Vonn's left leg

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Lindsey Vonn's Olympics was over in just 13 seconds.

The 41-year-old Alpine skiing superstar shocked the world when she announced that she would compete at the Milan Olympics with a torn left ACL. After a successful training run, it looked like she might actually pull it off. 

Then, moments into the downhill final, her ski pole hit a gate and she crashed, shattering her left tibia. More hardship followed when she learned just a day later that her beloved dog Leo had died. 

After four surgeries in Italy, Vonn has finally returned home. Her leg is, as she describes it, "in pieces." After another surgery at home, her tibia is now held together by plates and screws, and it's unclear if we'll see her on skis again. 

But when she looks back on her time in Milan, Vonn says she wouldn't have done it differently.

"The ride was worth the fall," she wrote on Instagram. "When I close my eyes at night I don't have regrets and the love I have for skiing remains. I am still looking forward to the moment when I can stand on the top of the mountain once more. And I will."

Winner: U.S. Women's Ice Hockey

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The U.S. women's ice hockey team did not skimp on the drama in their final against their biggest rival, Team Canada. 

Team USA came into the Games as favorites to medal, something they've done at every Olympics since 1998. The real goal was to beat Canada: the two teams have gone 1-2 nearly every Olympics, with Canada taking the win in Beijing in 2022.

It was 0-0 for much of the first and second period, until Canada's Kristin O'Neill's goal put her country ahead. Their lead would hold until the final moments of the third period, when U.S. team captain Hilary Knight tied the score. Megan Keller scored in overtime, clinching the win for the U.S. 

This gold is special for Knight, who competed in her fifth and final Olympics in Milan and will be the flagbearer for the closing ceremony. She's also coming home with a fiancée — a day before the final, Knight proposed to speed skater Brittany Bowe, whom she met at PyeongChang 2018.

Winner: The Miracle Workers

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It was 46 years ago to the day since Team USA won its last men's ice hockey gold medal, in a moment now known as the Miracle on Ice. 

At these Olympics, the pressure was on for the U.S. to finally reclaim the title. With NHL players joining the Olympics for the first time since 2014, the talent pool was stronger than ever, and Canada, the U.S.'s biggest threat, had to compete without injured captain Sidney Crosby. 

Like in the women's final, it came down to the wire. Team USA's Matt Boldy scored early in the first period, and they hung on through a five-on-three power play in the second. But with just over a minute left in the period, Cale Makar of Canada tied the game. Neither team scored in the third period, sending the game into overtime. 

Finally, Jack Hughes scored the game-winning goal for the U.S., closing out the Milan Winter Olympics with a historic victory.

Loser: Silver Haters

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When we place gold medal expectations on athletes, it's inevitable that some will fall short. That doesn't mean they're not happy.

A few athletes pushed back against the idea that one "loses for silver" at these Games, including Eileen Gu, who laughed at a reporter who asked her whether her medals for Big Air and Slopestyle were "two silvers gained or two golds lost." 

"I'm the most decorated female freeskier in history," she replied. "I think that's an answer in and of itself." Gu went on to win the halfpipe title.

Chloe Kim took her third medal in a row — a silver — in women's halfpipe in Milan, despite competing with a torn labrum. Media outlets may have reported that she "fell short" of gold, but Kim doesn't seem to think so.

"This medal means so much to me, and according to my color analysis, white metals make me look brightest!" she wrote on Instagram.

Speed skater Jordan Stolz was under pressure to win four golds at these Olympics. But after winning a silver, he told the media, "I am still happy with silver. I have two golds [from Milan], and I was actually really happy that [gold medalist] Ning was able to pull it off." 

Winner: Bobsleigh Moms

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Elana Meyers Taylor and Kaillie Humphries have been open about the challenges and triumphs of balancing an athletic career and motherhood. 

In Milan, it was all triumph, as Meyers Taylor got her first gold medal at her fifth Olympics. This brings her medal count to six, breaking her own record for most decorated female bobsleigh racer. 

When Meyers Taylor saw the results, she embraced Macy Lynn, her teammate who moonlights as the family nanny, and shed tears of joy before embracing her two sons.

Humphries, another Olympics veteran who took bronze in the event later won bronze in the two-woman bobsleigh, posted on Instagram, "Fifth Olympic medal, first as a mom."

Loser: Mikaela Shiffrin's Doubters

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Mikaela Shiffrin had a rough outing at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, missing the podium in all six events. The past few years have not been kind, as she's dealt with the death of her father and a crash that left her with a stab wound and post-traumatic stress disorder. 

She could have quit. Her status as the most decorated Alpine skier of all time is still unmatched — she has 108 World Cup wins and three Olympic medals — and she had nothing to prove coming into these Games. 

But Shiffrin kept going, and those who had counted her out had to eat crow. After finishing 11th and fourth in her two other events, Shiffrin placed first in the slalom, her specialty.

Following the event, she posted a photo of herself taking one of her trademark naps next to her gold medal, with the caption, "Not a lot going on right now…"

Teammate Breezy Johnson had a special Olympics as well — she won the women's downhill event, then got engaged shortly after crashing in the Super-G event. 

Loser: Live TV

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Streaming these events live means no tape delay and no chance to edit out flaws, be they good, bad, or ugly. 

We had biathlete Sturla Holm Laegreid, who, following his bronze-medal performance, announced on air that he had cheated on his girlfriend. He hoped to use the moment to convince her to forgive him, though, according to follow-up reports, it didn't seem to work. 

Then, there was Australian reporter Danika Mason, who appeared to slur her words and speak off topic during a live broadcast, and later apologized for drinking on the job. 

But not all the snafus ended with a face palm. A dog named Nazgul crashed a women's cross country skiing qualifier, chasing the competitors across the finish line and earning an official photo finish. 

Journalists had a field day with Nazgul, with NPR reporting that "Race organizers did not make Nazgul available for questions after his capture" and The Guardian calling him "a very good boy."