MLB Spring Training 2026 is rolling with most days seeing more than a dozen games, which means 2026 Fantasy baseball drafts are going on the clock now. The early 2026 Fantasy baseball ADP shows two-way player Shohei Ohtani as the clear-cut top pick in most drafts, with Aaron Judge, Bobby Witt, Juan Soto, Jose Ramirez and Elly De La Cruz also going in the first round of many drafts. Those are relatively obvious picks for the top of drafts, but finding value in the mid-to-late rounds is the key to building a deep, championship-level roster.
Who are the top 2026 Fantasy baseball sleepers, breakouts and busts, and which 2026 Fantasy baseball picks can give your roster an edge this season? MLB Opening Day is on Wednesday, March 25 with the Yankees vs. Giants, with a full slate of games then taking place the following day, leaving about a month to make Fantasy baseball picks. Before going on the clock in any 2026 Fantasy baseball drafts, be sure to see the 2026 Fantasy baseball rankings and cheat sheets from the proven computer model at SportsLine.
Last season, SportsLine’s Projection Model identified several top Fantasy baseball sleepers, breakouts, and busts, including nailing Cal Raleigh’s huge season. The team at SportsLine was all over Raleigh as a Fantasy breakout from the start. They had him as a top-five catcher in their optimal rankings, ahead of catchers such as Adley Rutschman and William Contreras. The result: Raleigh blasted 60 home runs and gave unprecedented value at a position where it can be tough to find offense from.
The SportsLine model is powered by the same people who powered projections for three major Fantasy sites. And that same group is sharing its 202 Fantasy baseball rankings and cheat sheets over at SportsLine, helping you find Fantasy baseball sleepers, breakouts and busts long before your competition. Their cheat sheets, available for leagues on many major sites, are updated multiple times every day.
One of the 2026 Fantasy baseball sleepers the model is all over: Pittsburgh Pirates second baseman Brandon Lowe. The longtime Rays infielder was traded to Pittsburgh over the offseason, and he projects to be a centerpiece for the Pirates who will hit near the top of the order. Lowe had a power surge in 2025, with his 31 home runs and 83 RBI marking his best numbers in those categories since 2021.
The latest Fantasy baseball ADP shows Lowe going off the board at pick No. 132. SportsLine’s model, however, projects him as the No. 6 second baseman, ahead of players such as Nico Hoerner, Marcus Semien and Ozzie Albies, all top-100 picks on average. See more Fantasy baseball sleepers at SportsLine.
Top 2026 Fantasy baseball breakouts
One of the 2026 Fantasy baseball breakouts the model is jumping on: Rockies catcher Hunter Goodman. Goodman hit below .200 as he got a taste of the Majors in both 2023 and 2024. As the primary catcher for the rebuilding Rockies in 2025, however, Goodman took a giant leap — hitting .278 with an .843 OPS and 31 home runs and 91 RBI as only Raleigh had more homers amongst catchers.
Despite that success and the advantage of hitting in the thin air at Coors Field, Fantasy players are still waiting until late in the top-100 picks to take the 26-year-old catcher this year. SportsLine’s model is projecting him as the No. 2 catcher in 2026, and advises Fantasy players to take him ahead of top-100 picks like Will Smith and Shea Langeliers. See more Fantasy baseball breakouts at SportsLine.
Top 2026 Fantasy baseball busts
As for players to avoid, the model has pinpointed Dodgers shortstop Mookie Betts as one of its top Fantasy baseball busts. While the Dodgers have continued to stockpile high-priced talent at almost every position, Betts is a player who has seen his numbers decline recently as he had career-lows in average (.258) and OPS (.732) last year. He especially struggled in the 2025 postseason with a .648 OPS, continuing the season-long trend of struggling at the plate as compared to his lofty career norms.
Entering his age-33 season, the model believes that Betts, who is going off the board pick No. 47, is again overvalued from a Fantasy standpoint this season. The model projects that players such as Jeremy Pena, Corey Seager and Willy Adames, all of whom are going off the board several rounds later, will provide more production. See more Fantasy baseball busts at SportsLine.
How to find proven 2026 Fantasy baseball rankings
SportsLine’s model has some shocking rankings at starting pitcher, projecting that one player who is barely going off the board in the top 200 will outperform huge names such as Max Fried, Chris Sale and Logan Webb. This pick could be the difference between winning your league or going home with nothing. You can only see who it is here.
The 2026 Winter Olympics wrapped up Sunday in Italy. But before the closing ceremony, Team USA captured a thrilling victory, beating Canada 2-1 in overtime to win gold for the first time since 1980. The U.S. finished with 33 medals total, the most since 2010, including 12 gold medals.
Temperatures about to soar with highs challenging records later this week
Breezy to windy conditions develop putting concerns about fire danger in play
DEADLY CRASH. ALL RIGHT, LET’S GET OVER TO ERIC NOW WITH A CHECK OF YOUR FORECAST. ALL RIGHT. A VERY FRIENDLY FINAL WEEK OF FEBRUARY IS EXPECTED HERE. ONE THAT WILL HAVE US CONCERNED ABOUT FIRE DANGER. THOUGH TEMPERATURES ARE GOING TO SOAR WILL BE CHALLENGING RECORD HIGHS LATER ON THIS WEEK. BUT WE’VE GOT A BREEZY, WINDY STRETCH TO RIDE OUT AND THERE WILL BE AREAS OF RED FLAG WARNINGS AND CRITICALLY DANGEROUS FIRE WEATHER TO TALK ABOUT. THE JET STREAM HERE HAD A BIG DIP IN IT, KEEPING THE COLD AIR VERY WELL ESTABLISHED. IT’S ABOUT TO FLATTEN OUT AND GO WESTERLY, AND WHEN THESE PACIFIC WESTERLIES BECOME PREVALENT, NOT ONLY DO WE TREND MUCH WARMER, BUT WE WILL BE TALKING ABOUT THE INGREDIENTS FOR STRONGER WINDS BUILDING INTO THE STATE. THAT WILL BE A COLD FRONT THAT APPROACHES AND KIND OF BACKS ON THROUGH. ON WEDNESDAY, IT LOOKS LIKE TODAY THE TEMPERATURE TREND IS UP. MAY NOT BE GOOD FOR 60S IN THOSE COOLER SPOTS IN FAR NORTHERN NEW MEXICO, BUT MOST OF US WITH HIGH TEMPERATURES IN THE 60S KNOCKING ON THE DOOR OF 70 DEGREES IN THOSE WARMER SPOTS IN THE SOUTH, CENTRAL AND SOUTHWEST PART OF THE STATE. SUNSHINE SHOULD BE THE STORY. IT’S JUST GOING TO BE A VERY PLEASANT WEATHER DAY OUT THERE. GOT TO WAIT OUT THE MORNING WARM UP THOUGH AS WE HEAD INTO THE OVERNIGHT HERE. YOU CAN SEE WE’VE GOT THE BREEZES IN EASTERN NEW MEXICO FOR THE AFTERNOON, BUT THEY’LL SETTLE QUICKLY THIS EVENING. AND IT’S A A DIP BELOW FREEZING FOR THE WEST AND NORTH. BUT I THINK ALBUQUERQUE PROBABLY DOES HOLD ABOVE FREEZING AND NUMBERS WILL BE IN THE UPPER 30S TO AROUND 40 DEGREES AS WE KICK OFF FOR TUESDAY. AND SOUTHERN NEW MEXICO TOMORROW. BIG STEP OVER WHERE WE TOP OUT TODAY. IN FACT, THAT WILL BE ALBUQUERQUE’S FIRST 70 OF 2026 LOOK AT IN SOUTHERN NEW MEXICO. WE ALREADY JUMP INTO THE LOWER 80S IN THE WARMEST SPOTS. THESE NUMBERS, AIDED BY SOME PRETTY STRONG WINDS OUT IN EASTERN NEW MEXICO. BREEZES FOR THE CENTRAL AND WEST. BUT I THINK TOMORROW AFTERNOON AND EASTERN NEW MEXICO, THE STRONGEST WIND SPOTS WILL HAVE GUSTS UP AROUND 40 OR MAYBE EVEN SLIGHTLY ABOVE 40. AND THESE FIRE WEATHER WATCHES WILL LIKELY BE TURNED INTO FIRE WEATHER WARNINGS UP AND DOWN EASTERN NEW MEXICO. SO WE WILL HAVE THOSE EXTREME DANGER FIRE CONCERNS NOW AS WE LOOK AHEAD TOWARDS WEDNESDAY, WE HAVE THIS FRONT BACKING ON THROUGH. IT’S A FAIRLY WEAK COLD FRONT HERE, MAY NOT EVEN RESULT IN LOWER TEMPERATURES AROUND THE STATE. IN FACT, ROSWELL, YOUR 87 WILL BE A RECORD BREAKER. ALBUQUERQUE I THINK OUR RECORD HIGH TOMORROW IS UP AT 78, SO THAT’S OUT OF REACH. BUT WE’RE UP AT 74. WE ACTUALLY SEE STRONGER WINDS FOR THE CENTRAL AND WEST ON WEDNESDAY THAN ON TUESDAY. BUT IN EASTERN NEW MEXICO, WINDS MAY NOT QUITE MATCH THOSE TUESDAY SPEEDS. THEY’LL BE CLOSE THOUGH, SO WE’LL STILL PROBABLY HAVE SOME FIRE DANGER CONCERNS AROUND A GOOD CHUNK OF THE STATE. HERE’S NORTHWEST, NEW MEXICO AND FOUR CORNERS. YOUR FORECAST TODAY. HIGHS IN THE UPPER 50S AND LOWER 60S FOR GALLUP AND GRANTS. THE TEMPERATURE TREND IS UP INTO WEDNESDAY. THEN WE DROP A COUPLE THURSDAY FRIDAY AND THEN JUMP AGAIN FOR THE UPCOMING WEEKEND CHALLENGE RECORDS ON BOTH SATURDAY AND SUNDAY AS WE HEAD OUT OF FEBRUARY AND INTO MARCH. SOUTHWEST NEW MEXICO, LOWER 60S, SILVER CITY, UPPER 60S. OFF THE MOUNTAIN. SILVER CITY HIT 70 BY WEDNESDAY, AND THEN IT’S 70 DEGREE HIGH TEMPERATURES INTO AND THROUGH THE UPCOMING WEEKEND. HERE’S SOUTHEAST NEW MEXICO. IT’S ONLY LOW AND MID 60S TODAY. NUMBERS VERY CLOSE TO LATE FEBRUARY. AVERAGES. WE DO HOLD ABOVE FREEZING TONIGHT, BUT JUST BARELY AT 36 IN ROSWELL. AND THEN LOOK AT TOMORROW WE JUMP TO 82. 87 WOULD BREAK THE RECORD BY TWO. WE DROP OFF A LITTLE BIT FRIDAY, SATURDAY AND THEN JUMP A LITTLE BIT FURTHER INTO THE 80S AGAIN ON SATURDAY. HERE’S NORTHEAST NEW MEXICO, LOOK FOR HIGHS IN THE LOWER 60S TODAY. LOOK AT THE TEMPERATURE TREND. WE HIT 70 BY WEDNESDAY. BACK DOWN TO THE MID 60S THURSDAY. AND THEN KIND OF FLIRT WITH THAT 70 DEGREE MARK AGAIN ON FRIDAY AND SATURDAY. NORTH CENTRAL NEW MEXICO HIGHS WELL INTO THE 50S AND LOWER 60S IN THE ESPANOLA VALLEY. WE’RE JUST BELOW FREEZING TONIGHT IN SANTA FE, 64 TOMORROW NEAR 70 WEDNESDAY. THEN WE’RE A LITTLE LOWER THURSDAY. FRIDAY BEFORE WE’RE BACK APPROACHING 70 AGAIN ON SATURDAY AND SUNDAY FOR THE ALBUQUERQUE METRO. THAT 64 IS, I BELIEVE, EIGHT DEGREES ABOVE AVERAGE FOR THE TIME OF YEAR. WE DO JUMP EVEN FURTHER UP THE THERMOMETER TOMORROW, HITTING 70 FOR THE FIRST TIME WITH AN AFTERNOON BREEZE. I THINK OUR WINDIEST DAY GOING FORWARD IN THE NEXT SEVERAL IS GOING TO BE WEDNESDAY. THAT 78 DEGREE RECORD IS OUT OF REACH BY FOR NOW. THURSDAY WE DROP A COUPLE. WE START TO TREND BACK UP FRIDAY AND SATURDAY AND SUNDAY WE ARE WITHIN ONE OF THE RECORDS BELOW
Temperatures about to soar with highs challenging records later this week
Breezy to windy conditions develop putting concerns about fire danger in play
We have not completely shed that lingering chill from the weekend; it is cold this morning with most spots down around freezing or below as we get going early today. The afternoon will be a quiet one with lots of sunshine and light winds for most, except for some breeziness out in eastern New Mexico. High temperatures will climb back up above average for late February and jump well into the 60s for most.Tomorrow afternoon will be a step warmer again, but also with stronger winds so we will probably have red flag warnings issued up and down eastern New Mexico for extremely dangerous fire weather conditions. Some of the stronger gusts out in eastern New Mexico could be above 40 mph! Wednesday could be even windier for parts of the state and another afternoon with the fire danger concerns.Winds will back off later this week and temperatures will drop slightly for Thursday and Friday, but another jump up for the weekend will have us challenging record highs on both Saturday and Sunday! We are still looking bone dry through the weekend, but the longer-range computer models are suggesting that the next potential storm and chance for rain and mountain snow could come by the middle of next week on Wednesday or maybe into Thursday.
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. —
We have not completely shed that lingering chill from the weekend; it is cold this morning with most spots down around freezing or below as we get going early today. The afternoon will be a quiet one with lots of sunshine and light winds for most, except for some breeziness out in eastern New Mexico. High temperatures will climb back up above average for late February and jump well into the 60s for most.
Tomorrow afternoon will be a step warmer again, but also with stronger winds so we will probably have red flag warnings issued up and down eastern New Mexico for extremely dangerous fire weather conditions. Some of the stronger gusts out in eastern New Mexico could be above 40 mph! Wednesday could be even windier for parts of the state and another afternoon with the fire danger concerns.
Winds will back off later this week and temperatures will drop slightly for Thursday and Friday, but another jump up for the weekend will have us challenging record highs on both Saturday and Sunday! We are still looking bone dry through the weekend, but the longer-range computer models are suggesting that the next potential storm and chance for rain and mountain snow could come by the middle of next week on Wednesday or maybe into Thursday.
Loblaw has laid out its 2.4 billion Canadian dollar ($1.75 billion) investment plan to build dozens of new stores with a focus on its value banners, while also renovating nearly 200 existing locations this year.
“I don’t care about his haircut at all,” United midfielder Matheus Cunha said in the build-up to the game, while Old Trafford legend Paul Scholes said: “I just hope they win tomorrow night so that lad can get his haircut.”
Ilett’s challenge dominated the postmatch discourse, too, after United failed to register a fifth consecutive win which would have allowed Ilett to cut his hair for the first time in more than a year. Instead, they were held to a 1-1 draw which would have been a have been a defeat had Benjamin Sesko not scored with an exquisite flicked finish deep into added time.
The result meant that United remain in fourth place, that the club’s push to qualify for next season’s Champions League keeps momentum, and that Carrick maintained his unbeaten record. It also meant that Ilett’s challenge, which began in October 2024, would continue for a while longer.
Last week, Ilett marked Day 500, his mop of hair longer than ever. If United don’t manage to win five in a row in their remaining 12 games of this campaign, then the challenge will roll into next season, which begins in August. That’s six more months.
So, if it is to end before the 2025-26 season comes to an end, what’s the best chance of doing so?
Five-game win streaks aren’t that hard
In an interview with ESPN in October to mark the one-year anniversary of his challenge, Ilett admitted things hadn’t quite gone to plan. “I thought it would only go for a few months and be a bit of a laugh,” he said. “It was something to spread humour to Man United fans during a difficult period of time.
“It didn’t feel unrealistic then, because the season before, they had won five games in a row.”
Ilett began his challenge eight months after United’s most recent five-game win streak — which they completed between January and February 2024. You can forgive him for thinking it wouldn’t take long. There have been 333 five-game win streaks in all competitions in the Premier League era (since 1992-93). For their part, United completed 58 of them. It wouldn’t take that long… would it?
Still, for a long time, United never got close to doing the same. Only once did United manage three straight wins under former manager Ruben Amorim — a brief stretch last January in which them beat Rangers and Fenerbahce in the Europa League as well as a league win over Fulham.
Ilett may have wanted to provide some “fun” for United fans during a tough period for the club, but that message hasn’t always landed.
“We are talking about Michael Carrick and Man United trying to win their fifth game in a row and the whole thing is about this guy getting his haircut. I bet he is devastated if Man United win because he will be irrelevant.”
Predicting where the challenge could end
This is where math comes into play. United have only 12 games left of a 40-game season, thanks to the absence of European football as well as early exits from the Carabao Cup (vs. Grimsby Town) and FA Cup (vs. Brighton).
Admittedly, it is not the easiest stretch. Only five of their 12 games come against bottom-half opposition. However, three of them come in their final three matches. Using Opta’s latest power ranking data, as well as factoring in home advantage, United’s statistically most favourable run is their final five games.
There is an against-the-clock element here, too. If United don’t win five games in a row between now and the end of the season, then Ilett will have to wait until the next Premier League season kicks off on Aug. 22, at which point it will be Day 688 … and counting.
The U.S. has brokered talks with delegations from Moscow and Kyiv as part of the Trump administration’s yearlong push for peace. But reconciling key differences, such as the future of Russian-occupied Ukrainian land and postwar security for Ukraine, has thwarted progress.
Meanwhile, thousands of each countries’ troops have died on the battlefield, and Ukrainian civilians have been battered by Russian aerial strikes that have brought years of power outages and water cuts.
Here’s a look at the conflict, by the numbers, since the full-scale invasion on Feb. 24, 2022.
The upper end of the estimated number of soldiers killed, wounded or missing on both sides, according to a report last month by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank.
It estimated that Russia suffered 1.2 million casualties, including up to 325,000 troop deaths, between February 2022 and December 2025 — what it said was the largest number of troop deaths for any major power in any conflict since World War II.
Russia has not released figures on battlefield deaths since January 2023, when it said more than 80 soldiers were killed in a Ukrainian strike, bringing the total military deaths Moscow has confirmed to just over 6,000.
CSIS estimated that Ukraine has seen 500,000 to 600,000 military casualties, including up to 140,000 deaths.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said earlier this month that 55,000 Ukrainian troops have died in the war. Many are missing, he said.
Neither Moscow nor Kyiv gives timely data on military losses. Independent verification is not possible.
The U.N. Human Rights Monitoring Mission’s count for civilian deaths in Ukraine since Russia’s all-out invasion, though it says that is likely an underestimate. More than 40,600 civilians were injured over the same period, it said in a December report.
The war has killed at least 763 children, according to the U.N.
Last year was the deadliest for civilians in Ukraine since 2022. The conflict killed 2,514 civilians and injured 12,142 in the country in 2025 — a 31% increase in civilian casualties over 2024, it said.
The percentage of Ukrainian land occupied by Russia, according to the Institute for the Study of War.
Over the past year, Russia has gained just 0.79% of Ukraine’s territory in the grinding war of attrition, the Washington-based think tank said in calculations provided earlier this month to The Associated Press, underscoring the little progress Moscow’s forces have made despite huge costs in troops and armor.
Before Russia’s all-out invasion, it controlled nearly 7% of Ukraine, including Crimea and parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in the east, as Moscow-backed separatists fought the Ukrainian army, according to Ukrainian officials and Western analysts.
The percentage drop in foreign military aid to Kyiv last year compared with the annual average between 2022 and 2024, according to Germany’s Kiel Institute, which tracks assistance to Kyiv.
U.S. President Donald Trump stopped sending American weapons paid for by the U.S. to Ukraine after he took office just over a year ago. European countries, striving to make up the difference, increased their military aid last year by 67% compared with the 2022-2024 period, the institute said in a report this month.
Foreign humanitarian and financial aid to Ukraine fell by 5% last year in comparison with the average in the previous three years, it said.
The number of Ukrainian civilians who have left their country.
Some 5.3 million of those people have found refuge in Europe, according to a report this month from the U.N. office in Ukraine.
Additionally, around 3.7 million Ukrainians forced out of their homes have moved elsewhere within the country, the U.N. said in December.
Ukraine’s prewar population was more than 40 million.
The number of Russian attacks that affected the provision of medical care in Ukraine, according to the World Health Organization. The figure covers the period from the full-scale invasion through Feb. 11.
The attacks include 2,347 strikes on health care facilities, as well as ones that damaged vehicles and the storage of medical supplies.
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) – The Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office is on scene at a multi-vehicle crash west of Albuquerque on I-40 near the Route 66 Casino. According to BCSO, the westbound lanes of I-40 at mile marker 144 are closed at this time. Deputies are investigating and assisting on scene while fire and rescue crews work […]
As businesses adjust to the new AEO landscape, marketers are seeing increasing convergence with marketing automation—HubSpot’s recent acquisition of Xfunnel signals this shift, bringing AI search optimization directly into the CRM ecosystem where attribution and revenue tracking happen.
The 2024 Paris Games revitalized what those five recognizable Olympic rings mean as a symbol of athletic competition, global community, ambition and achievement on the world’s stage. As soon as the most recent Summer Games concluded, the reviews were near-universal in agreement. The Olympics were officially back, with Paris’ moment widely recognized as one of the best Games in history for a bevy of irresistible reasons: the jaw-dropping backdrops and unique stages for competition; the record-setting performances; the star power drawn in by one of the most famous cities in the world; and, crucially, the return of a normal Olympics after COVID had severe impacts on the previous two.
The just-concluded Milan Cortina Games couldn’t hit the same highs or have quite the same worldwide reach of the Paris Games — the Summer Olympics will always out-rate Winter — but all medals and moments considered, what we just watched over the past 16 days immediately vaults this fortnight competition near the top of the list of the best Winter Games of all time.
What’s more, for the first time since Vancouver in 2010, the world’s best cold-weather athletes competed in a place that was both visually stimulating for TV watchers and viewership-friendly in the United States.
As for the U.S. delegation, this has to be regarded as the country’s greatest go on snow and ice ever. Those in red, white and blue put on an epic showing, with Americans bringing home 12 gold medals, the most in any Winter Olympics. The 33 total medals were four off their best haul during those Vancouver Games 16 years ago.
My primary gig for CBS Sports is to write and talk about men’s college basketball, but longtime readers know all too well how much I love the Olympics. And even in the midst of what I think will wind up being an all-time season in college hoops, I had my attention split for two weeks between American hardwood and Italian ice due to the gorgeous vistas, powerful storylines, emerging star power and ever-reliable drama that came across my TV screen with 16 disciplines in eight sports taking place an ocean and a continent away.
The redemption stories and breakout stars and anguishing images of failure that developed over two-plus weeks in the mountains of Northern Italy produced enough narratives to fill a 500-page novel. I’ll go much shorter than that, but please join me on a look back at the stars and moments that made the Milan Cortina Games one of the best Winter Olympics ever.
Team USA sweeps hockey gold
We start with ice hockey. The United States men’s and women’s teams won gold in the same Olympics for the first time, which is a monumental achievement in its own right. But then consider the details: The two teams did it three days apart in games, in games that that both ended 2-1, in games that both reached overtime, in games that both downed a perfect rival, Canada.
It’s only the third time men’s hockey has won the Olympic tournament; 1960 being the first. The 1980 team has been subject to documentaries. Both of these champions will be as well.
Mikaela Shiffrin’s redemption arc
Mikaela Shiffrin, 30 years old and far from finished in her one-of-a-kind career, has become one of my favorite athletes. Shiffrin got the third Olympic gold medal of her career on Feb. 18, but it was the only one of these Games. It came in her best discipline, the slalom, and in staggering fashion. Shiffrin exorcised her previous eight non-podium skis in the Olympics by winning her two slalom races by 1.50 seconds, marking the largest margin of victory in an Alpine Olympic event since 1998. The gap in her win was so large, it was actually a longer amount of time than the advantage of the six previous Olympic slalom winners — COMBINED!
She entered Milan as the only two-time slalom gold medalist in U.S. history. And now Shiffrin is the first Team USA skier to ever win three gold medals, too. She was already the youngest (18 in 2014) to win the women’s slalom event at the Olympics, and with last week’s gold she’s also now the oldest to ever do it as well. One barrier after another, broken.
She did it after failing to medal in giant slalom and also shockingly blowing a first-place lead in the Olympics debut of the team combined event with teammate Breezy Johnson — whose downhill gold was one of the United States’ 12. Shiffrin responded with one of the best races of her life. She earned it not because of the hard work, but because of how she so willingly put herself out there, time and again, with her struggles.
Every time I heard Shiffrin talk, or saw one of her social posts, it was nothing but positivity, affirmation of teammates and competitors and transparency over accepting the challenges of these moments, of living through them instead of going against them. When she won gold last week, cameras caught her expression, goggles still over the eyes, and the first word out of her mouth?
Dad.
I almost cried when I watched it live.
Shiffrin unexpectedly lost her father to an accident in 2020. She’d won races since then, and had high-profile failures too. But winning a medal on the Olympic stage hadn’t happened since he passed. Her honesty at her medal-winning press conference about processing grief is something everyone should watch.
Women provided so many inspirational performances
Johnson, not only won gold here, she did so on the course that was the stage of a pre-Olympics crash in 2022 that caused her to miss the Beijing Games. And so not only did she make a grand comeback at 30, she also got engaged after her final race.
The Netherlands’ speedskating duo of Femke Kok and Jutta Leerdam each won a gold and a silver and they have flipped a niche sport into must-see competition. They are bona fide uber celebrities in their home country, where speedskating is treated there like football is in the States. Italian Arianna Fontana made history by competing in her final Olympics at 35 and winning a gold and two silvers in short track speedskating, and finishing with a medal at six straight Olympics. No one else has ever done that! She’s got 14 medals to her name, second most ever to Norways Marit Bjøgen’s 15.
Speaking of peaking at the end: Elana Meyers Taylor competed in her fifth Olympics and finally, as a 41-year-old mom of two, won her first gold in the monobob. Imagine hitting the peak of your athletic life after the age of 40? Lindsey Vonn tried to do that, only to see it end in disaster. But Vonn’s tragic final Olympic race — which has required three surgeries already and will need at least one more — served as a scary reminder of the very real stakes of competition in the Winter Olympics. Nothing compares.
Men who seemed to be immortal, and a ‘God’ who proved to be human
American speedskater Jordan Stolz hoped for four medals, perhaps even four golds, but came away with two and a silver. His pair of individual first-place finishes represented the only American to pull off the feat in Italy. Stolz was a breakout star, though his failure to medal in Saturday’s mass start means he’ll likely enter 2030 as the male face of Team USA while also having all the motivational storylines to set up what could be his grand Olympic moment.
The same can be said of the Quad God, Ilia Malinin, whose failed routine in the men’s free skate goes as the biggest stunner of them all at these Games. A shocking reminder that, although there is so much storytelling attached to the Olympics, the Games can never be scripted.
But they sure are sculpted. Norwegian cross-country skier Johannes Høsflot Klæbo might be one of the 10 most fit humans on the planet. Cross-country skiing isn’t a sport so much as it is an action in pain tolerance. Klæbo has done the impossible and become a global star. His six gold medals over a two-week span are a Winter Olympics record. He skied almost 62 miles in Italy. The 29-year-old joins Michael Phelps as the only Olympians ever to have double-digit gold medals (Klæbo now has 11; Phelps is untouchable with 23). Klæbo’s six helped get Norway to the top of medal table; the country finished with 18 golds and 41 overall, both records.
Klæbo wasn’t the only cross-country skier to earn big headlines. The weirdest story of the Games goes to his countryman, Norway’s Sturla Holm Laegreid, who decided to cry and admit to being a cheater on television, only to see the story go global. To date, there is no indication he’s won back his ex-girlfriend. (Seriously, man. What was the plan here? Yikes!)
There was the glory of Brazil’s Lucas Pinheiro Braathen, who won the first medal (a gold, nonetheless) for a South American country in a Winter Olympics ever, and then celebrated with an instantly iconic gesture atop the podium after winning the freestyle skiing competition.
The bravest moment of the Games didn’t happen on any course, ice, snow or field of competition. Ukraine’s Vladyslav Heraskevych was not allowed to compete in skeleton after he refused to compete in anything other than the helmet that bore the images of his fellow Ukranian athletes who were killed in the Russian invasion in recent years. By trying not to make a political statement, the IOC wound up making one anyway and Heraskevych emerged as a disappointed but principled and proud hero who was as clear-eyed in his pursuits as any of the 2,800-plus Olympians who earned invites to Italy.
I loved American snowboarder Nick Baumgartner, a 44-year-old with the spirit of a happy kid. He’s still going for medals in snowboard cross, and he very much intends to be back in four years. If he can do it, so can Austrian Benjamin Karl, who won gold as a 40-year-old and celebrated by going topless.
Why next two Winter Games will likely top 2026
Here’s one major reason I’ve long loved the Winter Olympics: the skill it takes to be the greatest in the world in the toughest of settings. For the most part, no sports are tougher on mind and body. The big rule of these Games is that all competition must take place on the surface of snow or ice. And so there they went on those slippery surfaces every day. Downhill skiers barreling down an icy mountain piste at 80-plus miles per hour. Snowboarders and freestyle skiers scooping themselves dozens of feet in the air above a halfpipe. Balancing on the thinnest of edges while skating on ice, or uncorking acrobatics wonders before gracefully landing on a slim slab of riveted silver, those who put blades below their feet continued to push the boundaries of what is physically possible.
Luge, skeleton and bobsleigh athletes throw themselves down verglas slides on sleds at speeds going faster than the legal limit on most American highways. Others endure organ-bursting snow pursuits in cross-country skiing, or take on heart-stopping flight risks in a variety of ski and snowboard aerial competitions.
It’s truly some of the most thrilling athletic competition known to man.
And I think we just witnessed an all-timer of an Olympics.
Now scroll back up and look at the names of the athletes that medaled. So many of them will be back, as will the likes of Eileen Gu, Chloe Kim and more. The United States outperformed expectations here in 2026. In four years, Stolz, Malinin, Shiffrin, Liu and more to come onto the scene will have gold medal expectations. In ice hockey, the American rivalries with Canada are sure to hit all-time highs.
The Winter Olympics are in the midst of a revival, and this is merely Phase 1. The next will hit big in France in 2030, and then just wait. In 2034, Salt Lake City will again play host after 32 years, and with it, the culmination of a renaissance on ice and snow both for the United States and the world.
