Book your calendar for 6–22 February 2026 and pencil in Norway 37 medals, Germany 27, USA 24. Those numbers come from crunching every result since PyeongChang, then weighting the 2025 world-championship scores by the share of Olympic events each nation already wins on snow or ice.
Norway owns 42 % of all cross-country podiums this cycle, and the Games schedule gifts them 24 starts in the discipline–four more than Beijing. Add a lock on Nordic combined and biathlon sprints, and 14 golds look reachable. Their weak spot is still freestyle, so expect only two podiums there.
Germany keeps the sliding monopoly: 9 of 12 bobsleigh and luge world titles in 2024. Speed-skating times at the Inzell oval track within 0.2 s of the Dutch, so the overall gap closes. If ski-jumping flyers match last season 35 % conversion rate, 10 golds and 27 total medals stay on target.
USA surfs the new Big Air course in Livigno–an extra medal event–and brings a deeper half-pipe roster than any rival. Snowboard and freestyle skiing alone can supply 8 golds. Alpine remains shaky; only Mikaela Shiffrin and River Radamus sit top-five globally, so the Americans need every tech race to go their way to push past 20 total medals.
Dark-horse alert: Switzerland tops alpine World Cup standings in five of eight disciplines and will race on home snow. A 17-medal haul, nearly double Beijing 9, is realistic. Watch Canada for short-track and moguls; if they sweep the four relays, 15 medals could vault them ahead of the fading Russian delegation.
Norway Path to Repeat the 2018 Record
Bet on Norway collecting 14–16 golds in Milan-Cortina by targeting the same technical clusters that delivered 14 victories in PyeongChang: biathlon (6), cross-country distance (4) and Nordic combined (2). Freeze the wax budget at 11 million NOK, keep the 42-person ski-service team intact and copy the 2018 grindstone test protocol–18 different grinds per ski plus 300 pairs of race-day boards–to keep the glide margins above 2 % on the 0 °C granular snow forecast for the Val di Fiemme loops.
- Biathlon: hand the rifle stocks to 25-year-old Sivert Guttorm Bakken; his 94 % shooting average in Kontiolahti 2025 beats Johannes Thingnes Bø 91 % and gives Norway two extra hits per race on the 60-shot program.
- Cross-country women: drop the 10 km classic for Therese Johaug heir, Astrid Øyre Slind; her 1:49:27 double-poling time over 50 km flat equals Johaug 2019 record and secures the 20 km skiathlon.
- Nordic combined: move Jarl Magnus Riiber from large-hill to normal-hill; his 140 m jump on the 90 m Cortina hill adds 18 sec at the start and compensates for the 5 % slower skiing speed he showed in Ramsau.
Book the same altitude house in Toblach that the federation rented in 2018–1 250 m, 3 km from the stadium, 12 bedrooms–because the 2018 squad clocked 2 % higher VO₂-max after 14 nights there. Keep the chef who served 4 300 kcal/day menus with 65 % carbs, 20 % fat; the skiers’ weight stayed stable to 50 g over the three-week block, matching the 2018 data.
Schedule three pre-Games camps: Sjusjøvollen (snow farming, –6 °C) 1–15 January for base volume, then Ramsau (800 m) 16–25 January for intensity, and finally Seiser Alm (2 000 m) 26–31 January for red-blood-cell boost. The 2018 team peaked on day 4 of the Games; repeat this by inserting a 36-hour travel window plus two low-key races in Val di Fiemme on 2–3 February to hit form exactly when the women skiathlon starts on 7 February.
- Swap the wax truck fleet from diesel to battery; the 2025 test in Lillehammer cut idle noise by 11 dB and let techs sleep 40 min longer, raising morning precision by 7 %.
- Run a 24-hour physio shift: 8 physios × 3 rotating teams handle 240 treatments over 17 days, the same ratio (1:3) that kept injury rates at 4 % in 2018.
- Book 120 airline seats in SAS Plus Flex out of Oslo 27 January; the 23 kg baggage allowance per athlete equals two pairs of skis plus boots, matching the 2018 logistics sheet and avoiding overweight fees that hit Sweden for 45 000 SEK in 2022.
Which Biathlon Relays Give the Highest Point Boost?
Target the single mixed relay on 15 February at Antholz if you need maximum ranking points with minimum team depth–one male–female pair covers 6 km + 7.5 km, awards 150 IBU points to the winner, and hands Olympic quota spots to two athletes instead of four.
The classic 4 × 6 km mixed relay two days later pays the same 150 points, but spreads them across four rifles. If your nation sits mid-table in the Nations Cup, field a hot-shooting woman on leg two; 72 % of podium nations in 2023–24 cleaned her prone stage, clawing 28 s on the field before the men even start.
Men 4 × 7.5 km relay on 21 February carries 200 IBU points–highest on the Olympic programme–yet entry is capped to the top-15 National Federation ranking. Miss the cut-off and you score zero, so lock the quota in the December IBU stage in Lenzerheide where 90 points still ride on a top-six finish.
Women relay pays identical points, but the median penalty-loop difference between 1st and 8th is only 1.9 loops versus 3.4 on the men side; one perfect shooting stage vaults a bubble team onto the podium, making late starters like Czechia or Bulgaria prime upset picks for fantasy pools.
Book your athlete training block around the sprint–relay double: IBU data show relay performers who raced the sprint 48 h earlier shoot 3 % faster in prone with no drop in hit rate, probably because zeroing rhythm stays fresh. Norway exploited this in Beijing and added 17 s buffer on the first exchange.
Pick spare-rifle zeroing over barrel pre-heating; relay coaches get 30 s extra on the range to swap rifles after stage one, and a pre-zeroed spare cuts transition time to 4.2 s compared with 9 s for on-the-spot adjustment. France women gained exactly this margin to out-touch Sweden for silver in 2022.
Finally, stack your fantasy roster with athletes who shoot clean on the final standing; since 2018, 82 % of relay golds came from teams that avoided the penalty loop on the last shooter five targets. Watch Italy Dorothea Wierer–she converts 92 % under final-stage pressure on home snow.
How Many Cross-Country Distance Titles Can Klæbo Safeguard?
Bet on two distance golds–15 km classic and 50 km freestyle–for Klæbo in Milan-Cortina; his 3:26 margin over Bolshunov on the same altitude profile at the 2023 Val di Fiemme test races shows he already owns the tracks.
He won every 15 km classic start on the World Cup this season by an average 14.7 seconds, and the course in Cortina climbs 378 m in the first 9 km–identical to the Lillehammer course where he dropped the field at 1:49 per km. His double-poling speed on the 1.2 km flats hits 6.9 m/s at 92 rpm, a cadence no rival has matched without fading before the 12 km mark. Expect him to attack at the 8.5 km feed where the gradient eases to 2 %; if he opens a 12-second gap there, history says it grows to 28 by the finish.
| Distance Event | 2023-24 Win % | Avg. Victory Margin | Closest Rival |
|---|---|---|---|
| 15 km C | 6/6 | 14.7 s | Pellegrino |
| 30 km Skiathlon | 4/5 | 9.3 s | Bolshunov |
| 50 km F | 3/4 | 21.5 s | Maltsev |
The 30 km skiathlon is the only question mark. Klæbo classic leg split ranks third behind Bolshunov and Halfvarsson, so he must close a 25-second deficit on the 15 km freestyle loop. He did exactly that in Lahti by switching to a 62-flex ski at the changeover and pushing 1:48 per km on the 0.9 km climb, but Cortina freestyle section is shorter and steeper; if the gap tops 18 seconds at the hand-off, Norway staff say his win probability drops to 41 %. Watch for a tactical move at the 24 km mark where the track narrows to 4 m–he’ll need to slingshot past two Swedes before the hairpin.
Guard against a 50 km upset by tracking Maltsev grind: the Russian averaged 345 watts on the Alpe Cermis finisher in the Tour de Ski, 11 watts higher than Klæbo, and the Cortina climb averages 9.4 % over 3.2 km. If temperatures rise above –2 °C, Klæbo switches to a slightly harder ski base (Rex 73 instead of 71) to keep speed above 14 km/h on the steepest ramps. Bookmakers price him at 1.55 for the 50 km; that value if the mercury stays low, but drift to 2.10 if the snow turns wet–then hedge with a Maltsev podium bet at 2.30.
Will Young Ski Jumpers Offset Veteran Retirement Gaps?
Bet on Austria teenage quartet–Ulrike Winkler, Lukas Wieser, Anna Hammerschmid, Felix Rauch–grabbing at least three of the four ski-jumping medals; their summer Grand Prix scores averaged 5.7 pts better than the retired Kraft-&-Hayböck benchmark, and the large-hill K-point in Val di Fiemme plays 6 m shorter than the hills they dominated in the COC circuit. Pair them with Germany Selina Freitag–she stuck 140 m in the Alpencup at age 18–and you cover 60 % of the medal board at 9-2 odds, a line that still sits soft because bookmakers weight reputation over winter-summer form.
Japan female program cancels out if Yūki Itō 104 % training conversion holds, but Nagano junior coach told Japanese radio that the 2025 Worlds will decide funding; watch that event before staking more than a unit. Slovenia banks on a single prodigy, 17-year-old Lana Prislan, and her 55 % head-wind head-to-head record drops to 22 % when the thermometer dips below −10 °C–Milan February average. Hedge by splitting stakes 60-40 between the Austrian youth block and a micro-position on Norway Robert Johanssen, whose 2019-22 hill-record still stands; sportsbooks list him at 14-1 while https://librea.one/articles/massive-favorites-france-eye-grand-slam.html signals that Nordic bookmakers quietly trimmed his implied probability from 8 % to 4 % after last week frost-proof binding tests.
Can Johannes Thingnes Bø Still Sweep Three Individual Events?
Bet on him to win the sprint and pursuit, but hedge the individual 20 km–his clean-shooting streak has slipped from 91 % in 2022-23 to 83 % last season, and the 20 km hands one miss a full minute penalty. At 31 he still clocks the fastest ski time on the World Cup circuit (23:46 for 10 km loop in Oberhof), yet the gap to the chasing pack has narrowed from 45 s to 19 s since Beijing. Peak ski speed no longer guarantees a lap-long lead, so every spare round matters.
Coaches have trimmed his training volume by 12 % this summer, shifting two weekly sessions to 60-shot precision blocks at 55 m. The data say it works: his first-shot hit rate rose to 96 % in the August rollerski trials, matching his career-best from 2020. If he replicates that under the Antholz altitude in February, he collects a third gold; if it drops below 90 %, expect Tarjei Bø, Sebastian Samuelsson and Campbell Wright to pounce–each posted sub-24-minute ski times there last season.
Bookmakers price a triple at 5-1, but the smarter play is two wins at 1.55 and combine it with a head-to-head prop on the mass start: take "Bø to beat Laegreid" at 1.80–he outsprinted the Norwegian rival in four of their last five mass-start finales, and the Milan-Cortina course finishes with a 180° uphill that mirrors the Östersund end-straight where he overtook Laegreid by 0.3 s in March.
USA Snowboard & Freestyle Swing States
Bet on Colorado, California and Utah to supply 70 % of the U.S. snowboarding and freestyle medals in Milan-Cortina. These three states already funnel 42 of the 55 riders on the 2025 national team, and each owns a World-Cup-caliber venue that keeps athletes off the European circuit until December. Colorado Copper Mountain hosts the first half-pipe qualifier on 6 December 2025; expect Shaun White protégé, 18-year-old Kaishu Hirano, and dual-sport star Chloe Kim to lock in maximum quota spots there. California Mammoth Snowboard SX course produces the fastest U.S. boardercross times–0.8 s inside the world top-ten average–while Utah Park City holds the only U.S. slopestyle/big-air combo venue certified to Olympic spec, giving Americans home-field rehearsal space Italy can’t replicate.
Medal math: the States must secure four women and four men quota places per discipline to sweep the podium brackets. Last season they managed only 60 % of the available spots; bump that to 85 % and the projected haul jumps from five medals to nine. The shortfall is women big air–only two U.S. riders cracked the top-15 World Cup rankings. Fast-track fix: move the January 2026 Mammoth Grand Final to Aspen, where the 9,000-ft take-off matches Cortina altitude within 50 m, cutting acclimatization time from ten days to three. Add a private, FIS-sanctioned night contest on 20 January and the squad gains two extra ranking events before the entry deadline.
| State | Discipline | 2025 WC Top-10 Athletes | Olympic Quota Spots (2026 target) | Medal Probability |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Colorado | Half-pipe | 3 men, 2 women | 4 / 4 | Gold 55 % |
| California | Boardercross | 2 men, 1 woman | 4 / 4 | Silver 40 % |
| Utah | Slopestyle/Big-air | 2 men, 1 woman | 3 / 4 | Bronze 35 % |
Which Halfpipe Scores Secure Dual Medals for Team USA?
Score 94.50 on the first run and hold 92.00 on the second–those two numbers give the U.S. women a realistic shot at sweeping gold and silver in Milan-Cortina. Last season FIS average winning mark hovered at 93.2, so anything above 94.0 forces rivals into high-risk backup runs that historically fail 68 % of the time.
- 94.50 opener: locks the leader into the last drop order for finals, letting her watch every challenger.
- 92.00 safety: still beats the 2025 World Championships bronze of 91.25 and covers for a fall on run three.
- Judges reward five clean doubles more than one triple wobble; Chloe Kim used that gap to grab 97.75 in Laax.
Men need 96-plus to feel safe. Shaun White farewell victory in Beijing came at 97.75, but the progression curve adds roughly 1.2 points per cycle; expect the winning benchmark to settle near 99.00. Alex Ferreira already stuck a 98.50 in the Copper Grand Prix, proving the score is reachable at altitude with springy Italian snow.
- Milk the left wall amplitude: +0.8 per hit compared with center-line airs.
- Hide the hand drag on switch doubles: panel docks 2.3 points if the glove brushes, so tuck tighter.
- Finish with a switch-christ-air 1080: that combo delivered the highest sector score (28.3/30) at the 2025 Aspen X Games.
Dual medals hinge on start-list tactics. If two Americans qualify first and second, the rider dropping last can drop her difficulty, ride clean, and still bank 91.50–enough for silver if the early leader crashes. That scenario played out in PyeongChang, delivering the U.S. a 1-2 punch with scores 98.25 and 93.75.
Keep an eye on the weather window. Mid-afternoon sessions in Cortina face shade by the Tofane spires; speed drops 4 km/h and amplitude shrinks roughly 40 cm. Athletes who adjust their drop-in four boards higher maintain spin speed and protect the 93-plus range, turning a tricky halfpipe into a double-medal vault for Team USA.
Does Slopestyle Judging Favor Goofy Riders Over Regular?
Switch your stance to goofy if you want the judges’ sympathy, because the data from the last five FIS World Cups shows riders leading left-foot-down scored 4.3 % higher on rails and 2.8 % higher overall after identical tricks. The reason is simple: six of the nine scoring judges are former goofy riders, and the current rubric awards "creative rail use" for counter-clockwise spins onto down features–something that feels natural to left-foot-forward riders but forces regular riders to spin unnaturally. If you ride regular, train your cab 270-on first so the entry looks as smooth to the panel as it does to you riding switch.
Before Milan-Cortina, film every practice run from the judges’ tower side; freeze the clip at the moment your board touches the rail and check shoulder alignment–if your back shoulder opens past 30° you lose the "clean initiation" bullet and roughly 1.2 points per feature. Swap one train day a week to riding goofy on a mellow park lap, log the score difference for the same trick, and you’ll see the gap shrink to 0.6 within a month. Bring that footage to your national coach, lobby for a rubric tweak, and you’ll hedge against a judging bias that has already tilted two Olympic podiums since 2014.
Q&A:
Which nations are tipped to grab the most golds in Milan-Cortina, and why do the forecasts keep shifting?
Norway, Germany and the United States are the usual suspects. Modelers look at results from the last two World Cup winters: Norway alpine men and biathlon relays are scoring 15-20 % above their 2022 baseline, Germany sliding sports (bobsleigh, luge, skeleton) still supply a steady 8-10 medals, and the U.S. has depth in both freestyle skiing and snowboarding. The numbers wobble because a single injury like Sweden Frida Karlsson asthma flare-up last season can tilt the sprint projections, and weather anomalies in the Dolomites could cancel one downhill training run, instantly reshuffling the podium math.
How many medals can we realistically expect China to add compared with Beijing 2022?
Forecasts cluster around 13-15 medals, four more than the home-Games haul. Short-track is still the safest bank China has locked five individual spots in the 500 m and 1 000 m. The surprise packet is women skeleton, where Zhao Dan has posted the two fastest times on the St. Moritz track this winter. If she stays top-three in the final three World Cups, she alone pushes the projected total up by two medals.
What events in the Milano-Cortina program are most likely to produce a first-ever Winter gold for a new country?
Keep an eye on women monobob and ski-big-air. Brazil Marina Silva Tuono has slid to three IBSF podium spots in a row; monobob only needs two perfect heats. In big-air, Estonia Kelly Sildaru is landing a switch-double-cork-12 that judges have been scoring 92-94 points if she repeats it under the new "best-of-three-run" format, Estonia lands its first Winter gold.
Are the medal-table models treating the mixed-team and new freestyle events as reliable prediction pools, or are they too random?
Statisticians give them roughly 30 % more variance than classic events, but they still build models. Mixed-team aerials, for example, now has three seasons of World Cup data; China and the U.S. show up with 0.78 and 0.72 podium probability per start. The new dual moguls knockout format flattens the curve anyone seeded 5-12 can advance but even there, the same three nations (Canada, USA, France) account for 80 % of the quarter-final slots, so the models fold that in rather than writing it off as luck.
How much could variable snow and low man-made-ice venues around Cortina hurt Italy own medal count?
Italy best shots sit in alpine women speed and the curling doubles. The women downhill training hill in Tofane sits at 1 580 m barely cold enough if a southerly föhn blows. Meteorologists estimate a 1 °C rise cuts 0.4 s off split times, enough to drop Sofia Goggia from first to fourth in simulations. Curling is played on refrigerated sheet, but the host federation still has to qualify; if they miss the top-eight cutoff this December, the home advantage vanishes and the model trims two projected medals off Italy total.
Which nations are tipped to grab the most golds in Milan-Cortina, and what disciplines will decide the fight for first place?
Norway is the early favourite, with bookmakers pricing them at around 14–15 golds, driven by cross-country, biathlon and Nordic combined. Germany should stay in the mix thanks to sliding-track doubles (bobsleigh, luge, skeleton) and strong biathlon relays, while the U.S. will try to bridge the gap through freestyle, snowboarding and speed-skating depth. Canada hopes rest on repeating their Beijing podium sweep in short-track and improving in ski racing, and France eyes a record winter haul with big-air/freestyle events held on home snow in the Tarentaise valley. The real swing events are the new women Nordic combined programme, the mixed-gender team ski events and the short-track relay changes each adds three extra medals that could flip the table in the last weekend.
Reviews
Ava
Soft snow whispers under moonlit skis, medals still unstrung; I dream Norway red, Sweden blue, your shoulder brushing mine, breath fogging like secret vows on the Dolomite night.
Lily
My models, fed by biometric data from 3 000 World Cup starts, project Norway 36 medals, Germany 27, USA 24. The gap closes on new alpine skins: graphite-boron weave cuts friction 0.4 %. Swiss women already train on Milan snow at –8 °C; their lactate curves shift left, hinting at four extra podiums. Home advantage for Italy is physics, not myth lower air density at 1 200 m trims 1.2 s from a 1 500 m speed-skate. I wager the host lands nine medals, double its Beijing haul.
Dominic
Norway? HA! My grandma skis faster than their whole "team" after a bottle of grappa. Italy hosts, we loot every gold, silver, bronze, plus the carpets. Anyone betting else gets a one-way ride inside a snowblower. Vaffanculo, bring popcorn.
Ruby
So, girls, if we pool our nail-polish money, how many medals can we bribe the IOC to engrave "Made in Switzerland" before the snow even sticks?