Milano-Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics: Team Italy Hopefuls

With 86 days until the start of the Milano-Cortina 2026 Olympics, I continue to write every week about Olympic hopefuls from different countries. Last week was Team USA. This week, my focus is on Italy, the host country.

This photograph shows the Milan-Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games medals during the unveiling ceremony at Palazzo Balbi in Venice on July 15, 2025. (Photo by ANDREA PATTARO / AFP) (Photo by ANDREA PATTARO/AFP via Getty Images)

AFP via Getty Images

Italy And The Winter Olympics

Italy has sent athletes to the Winter Games for 100 years, since the Games began in 1924.

Italy’s first-ever Winter Olympics gold medal would not be won until 1948. It was won by Nino Bibbia in the men’s individual skeleton event at the 1948 Winter Olympics in St. Moritz, Switzerland.

Since 1924, Italy has won a total of 141 Olympic medals, including 42 gold medals, 43 silver medals, and 56 bronze medals. Italy’s total Winter Olympic medal count places it 12th all time among all countries. Among Italian Winter Olympians, only Alberto Tomba and Deborah Compagnoni have achieved the feat of winning three gold medals (Tomba would also win two silver medals while Compagnoni would win one silver in Alpine skiing. Compagnoni holds the distinction as the only woman to win three gold medals at three different Winter Olympics (1992, 1994, and 1998)

2026 Olympic hopefuls for Italy include the following athletes:

Skier Soffia Goggia

At 32, Soffia Goggia is the most successful Italian woman ever in the downhill. She is the first Italian woman ever to win Olympic gold in the downhill event in PyeongChang in 2018. She would follow that up with a silver in the same event in Beijing in 2022. Now, injury-free after breaking her right ankle and tibia in 2024, she’s looking ahead to her biggest challenge yet, representing her sport and her nation on home turf in summer 2026.

Skier Federica Brignone

Brignone won 10 World Cup races on the way to her second overall title last season, and secured the giant slalom world title in February. She is the winningest female skier from Italy with 37 career wins. In April, Brignone fractured multiple bones in her left leg and tore her ACL during a GS crash at the Italian championships. Her return to racing is still pending, with the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics just over three months away.

She is working hard to recover from and remains hopeful of competing at the 2026 Milano Cortina Winter Olympics in February.

“It would be my dream to be there. I am working hard to make it,” added the 35-year-old, who won the overall World Cup in 2020 and 2025, when asked about her chances of returning in time for the Games.

Freestyle Skier Flora Tabanelli

Flora Tabanelli is an Italian freestyle skier who has become a rising star in the sport since her breakout 2024–2025 season. In 2025, she won the Freeski Big Air gold medal at both the World Championships and the X Games, and earned the Overall Park & Pipe Crystal Globe in the FIS World Cup. She is the youngest skier to compete at X Games Aspen 2025, at 17 years old.

Snowboarders Michela Moioli and Omar Visintin

Michela Moioli and Omar Visintin already paired up to earn silver in the mixed team event in Beijing in 2022. Both riders will be among the host nation’s medal hopefuls for Milan Cortina 2026, particularly Moioli. The 2018 Olympic snowboard cross champion won her first women’s snowboard cross world title in 2025.

Speed Skater Ariana Fontana

Italy’s most decorated Winter Olympian with 11 medals, Fontana will be competing in her second home Olympics (after Turin 2006). She remains a top-10 competitor in the world at age 34 and is a strong medal prospect in various short track events. This will be Fontana’s fifth Olympic Games if she goes.

When asked to comment recently all she could say was: “I’m tickled by the idea of having competed at my first Olympics in Turin and now at a last one in Italy… I don’t think any other athletes have done it, or had the chance to, or will even ever have the chance to do something like that. So I can’t deny it’s something I’m thinking about.”

Curling Pair Stefania Constantini and Amos Mosaner

As a team, Italian curlers Stefania Constantini and Amos Mosaner are perfect. They’ve never lost in international competition. At the 2022 Beijing Olympics, they put forth a masterful performance, going 11-0 en route to a gold medal in the mixed doubles event. Three years later, they posted another 11-0 record at the 2025 World Mixed Doubles Curling Championship qualifying for the 2026 Games. They are the prohibitive favorites heading into Milano-Cortina.