Team USA Reveals Ski and Snowboarding Roster for 2026 Winter Olympics: ‘One of the Strongest Teams We Have Ever Sent’

Team USA is excited about the 97 qualifying skiers and snowboarders heading to Northern Italy.

On Wednesday, Jan. 21, the U.S. Ski and Snowboard teams announced which athletes will compete in the 2026 Winter Olympics in Northern Italy. The Milano Cortina Games will run from Feb. 6-22, across Milan, Cortina d’Ampezzo, Valtellina and Val di Fiemme.

Several Olympic gold medalists will be returning: Mikaela Shiffrin, Chloe Kim, Lindsey Vonn, Jessie Diggins, Chris Lillis, Red Gerard, Alex Hall and Nick Baumgartner. Olympic silver medalists Ryan Cochran-Siegle, Alex Ferreira, Nick Goepper and Jaelin Kauf will also be returning to the slopes. 

“In many ways, making this team is even harder than the Olympics themselves,” snowboard program director Rick Bower said, according to CBS Sports. “The depth of our field is incredible, and selection truly came down to the wire.”

U.S. Ski & Snowboard President and CEO Sophie Goldschmidt said in the announcement that she’s “confident about the impact [Team USA] will make in Italy.”

Anouk Patty, U.S. Ski & Snowboard Chief of Sport added, “This is one of the strongest teams we have sent to the Games.”

“I am excited to cheer for them on the biggest stage in sports,” Patty said in the announcement. 

With several returning Olympians, the professional athletes also hold history-making records. Vonn, 41, first retired in 2019 but in the years since has worked towards a comeback. Now she’s making history as the oldest woman ever to compete in Alpine skiing at the Winter Olympics.

After suffering multiple torn ACLs and countless injuries, a partial titanium knee replacement in 2024 gave her the motivation to return to the Games. “I built an amazing life and was really happy in retirement,” she told PEOPLE. “But I didn’t finish my career the way I wanted to. I was limping away when I wanted to finish strong.”

Meanwhile, Shiffrin, 30, is the most decorated alpine skier with 107 victories. The two-time gold medalist’s placement on the team comes after she suffered a life-threatening injury from a ski crash at the Stifel Killington Cup in November 2024. 

In October 2025, she told PEOPLE that she doesn’t feel she’s “at winning speed.” Adding, “I’m certainly nervous, too, which is good. It means we care, right?”

Kim, 25, has the chance to make history as the first person to complete a “three-peat” in the women’s snowboard halfpipe event if she wins gold.

“I don’t really feel that type of pressure,” Kim previously told PEOPLE. “At each Olympics I always go into it with a new set of goals and I think this time I just really want to enjoy the experience and have a good time.”

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Like Kim, Gerad, the 25-year-old slopestyle snowboarder, will be returning for his third Olympics. Notably, he became the youngest snowboarding gold medallist in Olympic history at the 2018 Pyeongchang Games.

“I just try to tell myself when the Olympics are coming around, it’s the same as all the other competitions,” Gerard told PEOPLE in early January. “I mean, yeah, it’s different. It’s on a bigger scale, and a lot more people watching and all that.” 

“But when it actually comes down to the snowboarding, it’s the same exact thing,” Gerard said. “So, if you can kind of put your blinders on and just worry about what you got to do and treat it the same as you have your whole life, that’s what I always try to do.”

To learn more about all the Olympic and Paralympic hopefuls, come to people.com to check out ongoing coverage before, during and after the games. Watch the Milan-Cortina Olympics and Paralympics, beginning Feb. 6, on NBC and Peacock.