Lessons from Milan Cortina’s Winter Olympics

February 21, 2026 , Brooke Jeffrey , Leave a comment

The Olympic Spirit is Not Dead

Everyone knows the Olympics are supposed to be about good sportsmanship. Unfortunately, in the era of relentless marketing pressure this is a phenomenon more often honoured in the breach. But, happily, there have been a few striking examples of Olympian good behaviour during these games so far.

Chief amongst them came courtesy of the Canadian women’s hockey team. When they learned that the majority of the Finnish team, the scheduled opponents for their first match, had been felled by a virulent norovirus, they quickly agreed to delay the game to a later date despite the inconvenience to their own schedule.

Another Canadian, flagbearer and moguls ski legend Mikail Kingsbury, demonstrated both impressive good sportsmanship and perseverance during his time competing in freestyle events in Livigna. Already the holder of 100 World Cup wins and three previous Olympic medals, Kingsbury was widely expected to win gold for Canada in the moguls singles. But, despite finishing with an identical time to that of his Australian counterpart, judges decided to award the gold to the Australian on a technicality and Kingsbury was left holding the silver. In the face of numerous queries from journalists about his views on this decision, especially given that ties in several events at previous winter and summer Olympics have resulted in two gold medals being awarded[i], Kingsbury remained philosophic, but he also vowed to do better in the dual moguls still to come. True to his word, he did indeed take home the gold in that event.

Then there was the gracious acceptance of defeat by American superstar figure skater Ilia Malinin, the so-called “Quad God” who was expected to walk away with a gold medal in the men’s singles. Instead, his free skate program dissolved into a series of errors that left him far off the podium in 8^th place. Despite this unexpected disaster, Malinin was among the first to congratulate first place winner Mickhail Shaidorov of Kazakhstan, and to post a message underlining the camaraderie found in many elite level sports, something that has been especially evident at Cortina among competitors in newer events such as snowboarding and aerial skiing.

“I actually went up to him and congratulated him. I watched him skate from the locker room, and I’m just so proud of him. I heard he didn’t have the best season. We’re all in this sport together, and we’re there for each other. That’s what makes this sport special…“I think people forget that sometimes. They only see us competing and assume we’re rivals without good relationships. But it’s actually the opposite. There’s joy, motivation, encouragement — we’re like a big family.”[ii]

2. Canadians Are Everywhere

Quite apart from the athletes themselves, (a sizeable team of some 207 competitors), a Canadian contingent of trainers, coaches and technical experts is evident everywhere at these Games, and they are not only working for Canadian athletes. Many are supervising competitors from other countries. One almost wonders how some of these events would be able to take place if Canadians withdrew their support.

Figure skating is one area in which the Canadian presence is mentioned almost continuously, regardless of who is actually competing on the ice. In fact, one individual – former Canadian Olympic champion Scott Moir — is coaching both the Canadian and American ice dance teams, something commentators note is not at all uncommon. Canadians also coach the winning pairs gold medalists from Japan, who have actually trained in Oakville Ontario since 2019. Then there is the Ice Dance Academy in Montreal, the popular location where almost all of the top contenders at Milan Cortina have been training for the past year. [iii]

As many viewers learned while watching curling events, the same situation applies to that sport. The South Korean women’s team, ranked third in the world, are coached by former Canadian curling star Guy Hemmings and the Chinese mixed doubles team by three-time Briar winner Marcel Roque of Edmonton. Similarly Canadians are coaching the women’s hockey teams of Germany, Switzerland, Czechia and Italy.

Since all of these sports involve ice, it is perhaps unsurprising that a Canadian, ice master Mark Messer of the Calgary Saddledome, was recruited by the managing committee at Milano Cortina to develop the artificial ice surfaces for the indoor speed skating arena, a highly technical and demanding process. [iv]

3. Trumpian Politics Taints the Games

In addition to good sportsmanship, everyone knows the Games are intended to be scrupulously non-political, a simple celebration of athletic excellence where athletes represent their country, not their government. In reality there has inevitably been some political aspect to many Games, but from the Cold War era to the present the most significant of these have involved the former Soviet Union and its current incarnation, Russia. The two most recent exceptions to this apolitical principle were the 1980 boycott of the Moscow Summer Olympics over Russian aggression in Afghanistan, and the exclusion of Russian athletes since 2022 over that country’s invasion of Ukraine. In this context the political issues arising at Milan Cortina are unusual, if not unprecedented. This time it is the Americans who are in such bad odour. And this, of course, is due entirely to the antics of the authoritarian narcissist currently living in the White House, who has managed to anger or insult almost every country present at the Games. At the very least, the dilemma posed by attempting to maintain Olympic principles of sportsmanship and neutrality are being badly challenged in the current climate by none other than the country once considered the leading light of liberal democracy.

Even before the Opening Ceremonies, several large protests had taken place in the centre of Milan opposing the presence of ICE personnel in Italy. “ICE belongs in a drink, not my city” was a popular slogan, as a multinational group of protesters, including expat Americans, demanded the Italian government expel any ICE operatives.[v] Although a government spokesperson attempted to calm the troubled waters by insisting that no ICE personnel were on the streets, and “only operatives from Homeland Security Investigations (a different branch) were in Italy, working out of U.S. diplomatic missions,”[vi] the protesters were not mollified.

Shortly afterwards, at the Opening Ceremonies, the American athletes were roundly cheered as the entered the arena, but American Vice-President J.D. Vance and his wife were loudly booed as they took their seats in the dignitaries’ viewing area. Several other media outlets around the world faithfully broadcast these developments, but the American broadcaster NBC, which had the domestic rights to the event, actually managed to suppress the booing, leaving American viewers completely unaware of the incident.[vii] Vance and his wife have continued to appear at various events featuring American competitors, accompanied on their travels between the participating venues by a security detail of some estimated 45 vehicles, causing numerous traffic problems and delays of events, as well as recurring smaller protests at venues themselves.

Meanwhile, at a men’s hockey match featuring the Danish national team vs the US team, TV viewers everywhere witnessed two fans holding up a Greenland flag, an act they said was intended to show European solidarity with the Danish semi-autonomous territory and their opposition to the American president’s “outrageous” behaviour. [viii] Other protesters have since followed up on the issue at other venues.

But Trump himself may be unaware of some of these activities, since he deliberately decided not to attend the Games. This alone was somewhat surprising, given his record of inserting himself into major sports events, including NFL games, the FIFA World Cup draw and last year’s Superbowl game. Nor has he hesitated to criticize sports figures, from NFL stars who refused to stand during the American national anthem[ix] to several members of the Washington Capitals Stanley Cup winning team who declined his invitation to the White House. His decision to avoid the Superbowl this year was equally instructive, given his admission that he was “anti-them” when referring to the half-time line up beforehand, and his subsequent trashing of music superstar and progressive activist Bad Bunny’s half-time show on his TruthSocial account (“absolutely terrible, one of the worst, EVER!” and “an affront to the Greatness of America”).

Not surprisingly, then, the President also took to social media to denounce many of the American Olympic team members who failed to demonstrate sufficient loyalty. This included several who thoughtfully attempted to navigate the dangerous waters of media interviews, including freestyle skier Hunter Hess, who admitted “It brings up mixed emotions to represent the U.S. right now. I think it’s a little hard… There’s obviously a lot going on that I’m not the biggest fan of, and I think a lot of people aren’t. Just because I’m wearing the flag doesn’t mean I represent everything that’s going on in the U.S.” [x]

Trump responded predictably, calling Hess “a real loser.” Even gold medalist Mikaela Shiffrin, who merely repeated actresss and UN Peace Ambassador Charlize Theron’s quote from a Nelson Mandela speech at the Opening ceremonies. (“Peace is not just the absence of conflict; peace is the creation of an environment where all can flourish, regardless of race, color, creed, religion, gender, class, caste or any other social markers of difference”.) Shiffrin was roundly denounced by Trump and several of his MAGA supporters, leading to an unprecedented exchange on the “Olympic issue” in Congress. Democratic Senator Chris Coons in particular expressed outrage at Trump’s behaviour, “Who does that? What president in the middle of the Olympics … attacks his own country’s athletes?” [xi]

While most American fans at the various events have seemingly attempted to blend into the crowds, a small number have chosen to respond to their country’s outcast status with over-the-top attire that emphasizes the MAGA images Trump has conjured. Nowhere has this been more obvious than at indoor events such as figure skating, where traditionally the only show of support allowed has been that of national flags. At these games, cameras have panned in on spectators wearing everything from Uncle Same outfits to costumes representing the American eagle. As IOC marketing director Michael Payne diplomatically noted, the 2026 Milan-Cortina Games are operating under intense political “clouds.”

4. The Russians Are Everywhere Also

Veteran figure skating fans were no doubt astonished to hear that several of the leading competitors in various events were representing Georgia, a country unknown for that sport until now. Other figure skaters and speed skaters were declared to be representing Kazakhstan, Lithuania, Armenia, Hungary and Germany, countries that also have never been known to compete at Olympic levels in these sports. How had they all suddenly developed such a cadre of elite athletes?

The answer, of course, is that they did not. Instead, these individuals were all “former” Russians who had acquired citizenship of a nearby country order to compete, since their country of birth is currently banned from the Games. According to one estimate there are some 11 of these “sports migrators” in the 2026 ice dancing figure skating competition alone, while 8 of the 32 skaters in the finals of the pairs were Russian-born.[xii]

It is true that sports migration is not limited to Russians. Over the years there have been several examples of promising athletes left off their country’s roster, or without a partner, who manage to find another country sympathetic to their plight that was willing to provide citizenship in short order, often because of familial ties. One recent example of this “flag of convenience” phenomenon close to home is that of Canadian ice dance skater Laurence Fournier Beaudry of Montreal who, having lost her longstanding Canadian partner due to a suspension, moved on to pair with French champion Guillaume Cizeron. Having received French citizenship in short order, the pair promptly won ice dancing gold for France in Milan Cortina.

However the situation of the Russians appears to be qualitatively different. They are finding a loophole, en masse, to circumvent the sanction of the IOC, and they are doing so with impunity. As one commentator noted, many, if not most of them, still train in and/or reside in Moscow, and would be hard-pressed to sing the national anthem of their adopted country if they reach the podium. According to the Russian sports minister himself, some 67 athletes have abandoned Russian citizenship since the invasion of Ukraine prompted the Olympic ban.[xiii] (Note that figure skater Ilia Malinin is not one of these migrants, having been born in the US to parents who fled Russia during the Soviet era and themselves became American citizens.)

On the one hand, it could be argued that this ploy is a reasonable accommodation to the conundrum posed by Russia’s banishment from the games, since the athletes are hardly to blame for the actions of their government and, given the four-year interval between competitions, might miss out entirely on their chance to compete. On the other hand, the degree of cynicism demonstrated by so many of them is inherently offensive to the intent and spirit of the games. Speedskater Kristina Silaeva epitomized that cynicism when asked about her situation as a ‘naturalized’ Kazakh. “I’m not ready to wait. An athlete’s career is short”, she admitted, noting that she planned to return permanently to Moscow when her career is over. “It’s not such a big problem”, to re-acquire Russian citizenship. “Everybody knows it’s just for the Games.”[xiv]

What makes this practice more offensive still is the fact that the IOC anticipated the hardship that banning Russia from the Games could cause for individual athletes, and created a legitimate mechanism for their participation. The Individual Neutral Athletes (INA) category is a sympathetic but reasonable compromise that member states were prepared to accept. An athlete who applies and passes the rules test for inclusion – no ties to the Russian military or secret service, and no public comments supporting the war in Ukraine – is allowed to participate under the Olympic flag, with no national anthem played if they medal. At these games, some thirteen Russian athletes applied for this INA status and were allowed to participate in that category. But estimates of the number of ‘sports migration; Russians participating range from three to four times that many, leading to obvious questions. Did they not apply because they do not believe they would meet the rules? Do they actually support their government’s position? Or would they not be allowed to continue to train at home if they chose this option, as so many of their more cynical cohorts apparently do?

These problems have apparently been occupying the IOC agenda for some time, leading to a highly controversial decision that Russian athletes will be allowed to participate in the Paralympic Games that follow, and most likely in Los Angeles at the next summer games.

5. Money Matters

By the mid-point in these Games the angst in Canada was palpable. Having predicted some 26 medals, the Canadian Olympic Committee (COC) was on the ropes, attempting to defend that prediction in light of the very limited degree of success in the early going, including not one Gold medal. Several columns waxed eloquent on the fact that this was the longest drought for the top prize for Canada in any Games since the hugely embarrassing shutouts of Montreal (76) and Calgary (88). “Why hasn’t Canada won more medals at the 2026 Olympics?” became a common headline,[xv] especially since it has long been assumed that Winter Games are the ones where this country ought to shine. Although things have turned around somewhat, with Canada’s standing now at 20 medals, but only 5 gold with mere days to go, the soul-searching continues. And the bottom-line explanation, offered by COC chief executive David Shoemaker, in lack of funding.

Just as good sportsmanship and neutrality are two key values of the Games, at least in theory, so too is the amateur status of the competitors, and here again reality often intervenes. While most athletes make significant financial sacrifices, combining paid full or part-work in the real world with demanding, time-consuming and often very expensive elite-level training, there have been notable exceptions that defied the principle. Probably the most blatant example was the former Soviet Union’s hockey team. For many years the Soviet team, which consistently won gold, was known to be as close to professional as it was possible to come. The players were all members of the military and worked on their skills virtually full-time while being paid military salaries. Needless to say they dominated that sport at successive games. This is what led, originally, to the IOC decision to allow NHL players to participate as well in order to level the playing field. But while this practice has undoubtedly improved the calibre of play of all countries, it has also left the NHL highly ambivalent, concerned about the injuries many of their star players may sustain at the hands of desperate and far less competent players. (As most recently demonstrated by the case of Sidney Crosby).

But hockey is a unique situation. For almost all other sports the amateur status of individual athletes is far more respected, and their personal sacrifices are much greater. Nevertheless there are significant differences in the level of support, both financial and instructional, that athletes receive depending on their country and their sport. Governments have a role to play in financing institutional support such as Olympic calibre arenas and other sport facilities. Most, like Canada, also support the various National Sport Organizations that manage individual sports. In addition to providing elite level training facilities and personnel, governments are also allowed to provide a small measure of financial assistance to elite-level athletes in the form of living and training allowances and/or tuition support, keeping in mind that there are strict rules concerning eligibility, and maximum amounts allowable per training cycle.

A graphic illustration of the importance of these various aspects of financial support for sport facilities and athletes can be found in the case of Canada. After the dual humiliations of Montreal and Calgary, a concerted effort took place to remedy the problem of underfunding. The Own the Podium program, instituted in 2005 after Canada was awarded the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver/Whistler, was a concrete plan to improve the country’s performance and outcome at those games. As the program’s website notes,[xvi] it was a targeted plan based on assumptions about which sports, and which individual athletes, were most likely to be competitive, and then substantially increasing the financial and technical support for those programs. It was also a plan based on federal, provincial, local and private sector investment in enhanced venues that would provide training sites for future athletes long after the Games were concluded.

As anyone who was watching in 2010 knows, the plan delivered. From Canada’s single digit medal totals throughout the entire period from 1924 to 1994, and mid-teen numbers in the next three Winter Olympics, Canada moved quickly to achieve a total of 24 medals in Turin in 2006, roughly a year into the Podium program, and then broke the mold in Vancouver, taking 14 gold medals – the most of any country at a Winter Games to that point – and an astonishing high of 26 total medals.

After those Games, the federal government pledged to continue funding for the Own the Podium program “to further impact performances and development by winter and summer sport athletes.”[xvii] Its commitment was followed in concrete terms by the creation of Sport Canada as a branch of what is now the Canadian Heritage department, and the development of three specific streams of funding within it: The Athlete Assistance Program, the Sport Support Program (for the individual national sports organizations), and the Hosting Program, (which helps sport organizations to host the Canada Games and international sport events), as well as the Own the Podium and Road to Excellence Programs aimed at further improving Canada’s performance at Olympic and Paralympic Games.[xviii]

For several years the impact of these programs and their accompanying financial support could be clearly seen. Canada’s total medal record was equaled or surpassed at the Sochi(2014) Pyeongchang (2018) and Beijing (2022) Winter Games and the gold medal totals remained impressive at the first two events (from 14 in Vancouver to 10 and 11) before plummeting to 4 in Beijing and now 5 at Milano Cortina. According to the COC’s David Shoemaker, this recent decline can be attributed in large measure to the fact that government funding for sport has essentially remained frozen since 2005. Put another way, the reality is that the government only committed to maintain the same level of funding as for Vancouver. In 2026 terms, “this constitutes a devastating decline, and we are now on the downside of that investment.” [xix] Shoemaker warned that the core of the Milan Cortina team is still made up of athletes who were first identified in the 2014 NextGen talent identification program, and “a thinning Canadian athlete pool is coming.” The number of Canadian competitors at Milan Cortina who were attending their second or even third Winter Games (covering a period of up to 12 years) amply confirmed this.

Athletes are also increasingly being left to their own devices, as government support for their assistance program has declined steadily in real terms, and is substantially lower than that provided by other comparable countries. In addition to members of Canada’s Olympic team who were obliged to pay their own way to Milan Cortina, and endless stories of athletes working three part-time jobs to pay for equipment and training costs, the individual national sports organizations have been sounding the alarm that they have not had the wherewithal to hold sufficient training sessions or to send competitors to various international events in preparation for the Games.

This has hardly come as a surprise to those in the sports community. The COC issued a press release in 2024 calling for an additional $104 million to be allocated immediately to individual national sports organizations in order to be able to adequately support and prepare athletes. It then subsequently repeated this request – along with dire warnings of the consequences of no additional funding assistance – when testifying before a Senate committee on the subject.

Somewhat ironically, the federal government had already created a Commission of Inquiry into the Future of Sport in Canada in December 2023, but its primary focus was to be on ethical issues relating to mistreatment of athletes, misconduct of athletes and organizations, and accountability. However the Commission soon became embroiled in the issue of sports funding as well, and its final report in fall 2025 contained an entire chapter on this subject, declaring “amateur sport in Canada is facing a financial crisis.”[xx] As a result, the Commission “echoes the recommendation of the Standing Committee on Finance that the Government of Canada “Increase the core funding allocated to National Sport Organizations to adjust for inflation since 2005, adequately resource organizations for the long-term to address critical sport system priorities, and eliminate the forecast funding gap these organizations require to effectively deliver their mandates.”[xxi] Needless to say the additional funds have not yet been committed, and the current economic crisis makes it unlikely that this will occur in the near future, if at all.

At the same time, an opposing argument has been presented by some critics of government funding for elite athletes at the expense of community development and participation at all levels by ordinary citizens. This position was enunciated by the current federal Secretary of State for Sport, Adam Van Koeverden, himself a former Canadian Olympian, who argued, first, that there is no underfunding of Olympic athletes and, second, that elite-level programs are only one part of the federal government’s sports program and, in his view, a less important one. “The sport system must do more than Olympians”, he declared. “That’s one reason that we fund sport, but there’s a dozen other reasons too. My main policy obsession is making sure that everybody has an opportunity to play, regardless of your financial background, who your parents are, where you live, whether you have a disability, whether you feel like you belong, let’s lower all those barriers.”[xxii]

Van Koeverden’s position was supported by a recent University of Toronto study that concludes federal sport funding has undoubtedly produced more medals for Olympians, but at a cost to participation in grassroots recreational and competitive sport.[xxiii]

In sum, the situation is a classic reflection of policy dilemmas faced by governments with limited resources and inflated citizen expectations. While the obvious solution would be to throw more money at both elite and grassroots sports, the political reality Canada faces — of economic slowdown, competing claims for prioritization of issues ( healthcare, childcare, pipelines, defence etc.) and significant political resistance to either increased taxes or greater deficit financing — mean that sports funding must take its place in a long line of wishful thinking by certain elements of Canadian society.

[i] Interestingly one of the most recent examples involved the Canadian two-men bobsleigh champions and their German counterparts at PyeongChang in 2018. For more examples see: https://www.olympics.com/en/news/two-golds-can-there-be-ties-across-olympic-sports

[ii] https://www.newsweek.com/sports/ilia-malinins-honest-message-about-gold-medalist-mikhail-shaidorov-goes-viral-11526735

[iii] https://www.canadianaffairs.news/2026/01/29/montreal-ice-dance-academy-churns-out-olympic-champions/

[iv] https://www.ctvnews.ca/calgary/article/canadian-ice-master-makes-olympic-history-with-the-games-1st-indoor-temporary-speedskating-rink/

[v] https://www.reuters.com/world/protesters-rally-milan-against-us-ice-presence-school-closures-ahead-opening-2026-02-06/

[vi]https://www.reuters.com/world/protesters-rally-milan-against-us-ice-presence-school-closures-ahead-opening-2026-02-06/

[vii] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/06/nbc-appears-to-cut-crowds-booing-of-jd-vance-from-winter-olympics-broadcast

[viii] https://www.ncnewsonline.com/sports/national_sports/fans-who-raised-greenlands-flag-at-us-denmark-olympic-hockey-game-say-it-was-a/article_8280facf-2a57-5452-8f04-c26260100598.html

[ix] https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2017/sep/22/donald-trump-nfl-national-anthem-protests

[x] https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5737956-us-olympians-trump-conflict/

[xi] https://www.thestar.com/sports/olympics-and-paralympics/wave-of-winter-games-athletes-changing-nationalities-to-chase-glory-and-russia-leads-the-way/article_c086a25a-b627-45f6-848c-d25cae8a5627.html

[xii] https://www.thestar.com/sports/olympics-and-paralympics/wave-of-winter-games-athletes-changing-nationalities-to-chase-glory-and-russia-leads-the-way/article_c086a25a-b627-45f6-848c-d25cae8a5627.html

[xiii]