What is a Skimo? Everything You Need to Know About the New 2026 Winter Olympics
The 2026 Winter Games in Milano Cortina will feature more medals than in previous years, thanks to eight new events. The most notable addition is ski mountaineering — or “skimo” — an entirely new Olympic sport.
Skimo is an endurance test where athletes climb high mountains on skis and run back down. It combines the visual challenge of climbing with the technical speed of skiing. With three gold medals on the line, it’s the biggest change to the Winter Olympics lineup in years. Here’s everything you need to know about skimo and how, when, and where to watch it.
Meet skimo, the new Olympic sport
As you might guess from the name, skimo is a new skiing event. Unlike other ski races, this one includes uphill and downhill, combining the endurance of Nordic skiing with the courage of alpine racing, and a small amount of NASCAR pit crew feel at the top, as competitors transition from uphill to downhill skiing.
The skimo race starts at the bottom of the hill. Skiers start with carpet-like strips called “skins” on the bottom of their skis, which help them grip the snow as they run uphill. As if skiing wasn’t enough of an aerobic test of pain tolerance, let’s make it harder and run uphill!
Like the runners near the top of the skimo course, there will be a very steep section of skiing, so the runners will jump out of their masks, throw them on their backs and climb the hill in their boots. This exhausting phase is called “boot packing.”
Finally, at the top, runners will jump back into their skis, take off their skins in a shocking fashion and race down the hill through a series of gates to the finish line. This downhill section will look like a giant slalom race, to those familiar with alpine ski racing.
Before you can run down, you have to stumble and climb up.
What are the three events of skimo?
There are sprint events for men and women, as well as a mixed relay.
Running events will be completed faster than you would expect. Runners will climb nearly 230 feet to the top over two ascending sections and run down to the finish line in less than three minutes.
The mixed relay will have one male and one female teams. Each runner will run twice, the woman will run the first and third leg and the man will run the second and last leg. Since skimo racers use ski poles, there’s no stick passing through the skimo relay — a simple marker is all that’s needed to pass the race to your teammates. The team with the fastest accumulated time wins.
The mixed relay course is longer than the sprint races and, in a twist, includes a bootpack stage on the second climb but not the first. The total time for the mixed relay race is expected to be 30 minutes.
When are the skimo events at the 2026 Olympics?
The men’s and women’s running events take place on Thursday, Feb. 19, Stelvio Ski Center in Bormio. All skimo competitions will be held on this one day, from the first heat to the gold medal final for both men’s and women’s competitions.
Each field consists of 18 competitors who race in three six heats. The top three in each heat, as well as the fastest three who did not automatically qualify, advanced to the semi-finals. The two fastest times in each semi-final, along with the next two best times, create a field of six in the skimo final.
There are no first heats for the mixed relay event, just the finals, which consist of 12 to 18 teams. The men’s and women’s mixed relay finals will be played on Saturday, Feb. 21.
Cam Smith will partner with Team USA’s Anna Gibson in the mixed skimo relay.
Which countries are the best in skimo?
Ski mountaineering started in the Alps, so it won’t surprise you if I tell you that France, Italy and Switzerland have historically dominated the skimo scene. At last year’s World Ski Mountaineering Championships, France won nine medals (four gold), Switzerland got seven (three gold) and Italy was third with four medals.
The current men’s world champion is Oriol Cardona Coll of Spain. He is the gold medal favorite at Milan Cortina for the men’s race. Emily Harrop of France is the favorite of the female athletes.
Who is on the US skimo team?
Anna Gibson and Cam Smith will represent Team USA in the medley relay. They became the first American team to win a World Cup mixed event. Their win in Solitude, Utah, was not only historic at the national level but also qualified them for the Olympics.
Gibson is a 26-year-old from Jackson, Wyoming, with a background in trail running and Nordic skiing. Hailing from Rockford, Illinois, Smith is 30 years old and the closest the US has to skimo veterans. He is an 11-time US Ski Mountaineering national champion and a five-time North American Ski Mountaineering champion.
