Welcome to At the Games Newsletter

Your daily guide to the athletes and storylines at Milano Cortina 2026

Welcome to At the Games. This is the SI daily digest of the XXV Olympic Winter Games, better known as the 2026 Milan Cortina Olympics. Our staff writers, Michael Rosenberg and Pat Forde, are in Italy chronicling the games. Will the Americans meet the moment? What are the medal expectations? The opening ceremony is on Friday, but today we will give a peek into the Games. Let's get it started! Justin James Muir/Sports Illustrated Ilia Malinin, Team USA's Quad God, Is Redefining the Limits of Figure Skating A two-time world champion who has gone unbeaten for two years, the 21-year-old looks to add a gold medal Ilia Malinin doesn't quite understand the question. How has the pressure he feels changed as he has gone from incredible to inevitable, from wunderkind to world champion?  He ponders for a bit. "I just feel a lot more confident when I step on the ice," he says eventually. "And I think that comes with practice and training. I'm able to go out there under pressure and really just give it my all." Malinin, 21, sees the added expectations as a natural result of his performance. He can't even conceptualize the idea that they might be a burden.  He was like that long before he became figure skating's Simone Biles, a sui generis athlete whose technical ability is so far above that of his competitors that, barring a devastating mistake or injury, he is guaranteed to win. Even as a grade-schooler, competing in his first events after picking up the sport of his Olympian parents at age 7, he struggled to understand why other kids were so anxious before they skated. Didn't they feel the freedom on the ice that had attracted him to this pursuit? READ FULL STORY ON SI.COM 📻 DAILY RINGS The Daily Rings podcast returns with a daily report on all things Milan Cortina. In today's episode, Mitch Goldich and Dan Gartland dig deep into previewing all 16 sports. Jerry Cooke/Sports Illustrated The 2026 Winter Olympics Will Give an Untraditionally Italian Region Its Moment It's mid-November in Sesto, a rustic town of nearly 2,000 people in Italy's Dolomite mountains, and the cows are still out to pasture. Within the week, the first big snowfall of the winter season will blanket the meadows, but for now, everything is rosy—literally, everything. The haze of the alpenglow seeps into every sight, and it seems to melt upon the Dolomites' pale, jagged peaks. In local legend, the alpenglow is a crepuscular love letter, a dwarf king's tribute to a Dolomite princess, unfurled only at sunrise and sunset. As in most Italian villages, the heart of Sesto (or in German, Sexten) can be found at the local coffee bar, along with the lone, communal national newspaper to be shared amongst customers. But rather than the usual buongiorno, you're greeted with something unexpected: grüß gott. This is still Italy, but it doesn't feel like Italy. READ FULL STORY ON SI.COM ❄️ OLYMPIC NUGGETS What Do Olympic Medalists Get? What Do the 2026 Winter Olympic Medals Look Like? Who Has Won the Most Winter Olympic Medals of All Time? Why Do the Winter Olympics Start Days Before Opening Ceremony? Leonhard Foeger/Imagn Images Always the Risk-Taker, Lindsey Vonn Is Holding Out for One More Chance Lindsey Vonn's entire skiing career has been built on tracing the razor's edge between glory and disaster. She has stayed on the glorious side more often than not, winning a record 45 World Cup downhill races. She has also trespassed into disaster territory, her body bearing the scars of several bone-breaking, ligament-tearing crashes. It's how she is wired to compete. Even in a profession predicated on embracing risk, Vonn's fearlessness is an outlier. Having mounted an unprecedented comeback in her 40s, she is painfully aware of the potential for physical ruin embedded in her approach to racing. She still cannot back away from that razor's edge. "I need to be able to push the limits in a way that the other women are not willing to," Vonn said in October. Did she push the limits too far last Friday? Skiing on a partially replaced right knee, Vonn's bid for her first Olympic medal since 2018 was thrown into doubt.  READ FULL STORY ON SI.COM 📸 PHOTO OF THE DAY Lisi Niesner/Imagn Images The calm before the games as the Olympic rings are seen at the top of the Cortina Curling Olympic Stadium. #️⃣ BEST OF SOCIAL Get the print edition of Sports Illustrated delivered to your door. Click to subscribe! Sign up for SI Newsletters Stay ahead of the game—sign up for all of SI's newsletters, from golf and soccer to MMQB, and never miss a moment. Get it in your inbox We may receive compensation for some links to products and services included in this email. Sports Publishing Solutions Inc. 625 Broadway, 10th floor New York, NY. 10012 You are receiving this email because you are subscribed to the SI Olympics newsletter. You can unsubscribe here . Privacy Policy – Terms & Conditions © 2026 Sports Publishing Solutions Inc. All rights reserved. SPORTS ILLUSTRATED IS A REGISTERED TRADEMARK OF ABG-SI LLC. All betting and gambling content included in the SI Olympics newsletter is intended for individuals 21+ (18+ in DC, KY, NH, RI, and WY). Betting and gambling content, including picks and predictions, are based on individual commentators' opinions and we do not guarantee any success or profits. If you or someone you know has a gambling problem, crisis counseling and referral services can be accessed by calling 1-800-GAMBLER or texting 800GAM. Click this link to view the newsletter in your browser.