The Olympic Games will be held in Northern Italy. For the first time, two cities, namely Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo, will jointly host the Winter Olympics. Competition venues will also include Rho, Assago, Livigno, Bormio, Predazzo, Tesero, and Antholz. The opening ceremony will start at Milan’s San Siro stadium at 10:00 PM Minsk time, with the closing ceremony set for Verona’s ancient amphitheater.
A total of 2,900 athletes from 94 countries will participate in the 2026 Winter Olympics, with Belarusian and Russian athletes taking part as neutrals. Over 16 days, they will compete for 116 sets of medals across 16 sports: biathlon, bobsleigh, cross-country skiing, curling, alpine skiing, figure skating, freestyle skiing, ice hockey, luge, Nordic combined, short track speed skating, skeleton, ski jumping, ski mountaineering, snowboarding, and speed skating.
The Belarusian delegation features seven female athletes. Cross-country skier Hanna Karaliova will compete on 7, 10, and 12 February. Speed skater Maryna Zuyeva will race on 7 and 12 February. Figure skater Viktoriia Safonova will compete on 17 and 19 February, as will alpine skier Maria Shkanova on 19 February. Freestyle aerialists Hanna Huskova, Anna Derugo and Anastasia Andrianova will enter the competitions on 17 February, with finals scheduled for the following day.
These Games mark Belarus’ tenth Winter Olympics since independence. In the previous nine, our athletes have won 20 medals: 8 gold, 7 silver, and 5 bronze. Biathlete Darya Domracheva became a three-time Olympic champion at Sochi Olympics in 2014. Four years later in PyeongChang, she won a relay gold with teammates Nadezhda Skardino, Iryna Kryuko and Dzinara Smolskaya.
Freestyle skiers Aleksei Grishin (2010), Anton Kushnir (2014), Alla Tsuper (2014), and Hanna Huskova (2018) have also won Winter Games gold. At the previous Olympics in Beijing 2022, Belarusian athletes won two silver medals: Hanna Huskova placed second in aerials, and biathlete Anton Smolski took silver in the individual sprint.
