In this section, you’ll find a wealth of original information gleaned throughout the day, live from the 2026 Olympic Games in Milan/Cortina: behind the scenes, little sayings, details that slip under the radar… In short, everything that makes the Olympic event come alive as closely as possible, beyond the results.
A difficult night for the neighbours of the French cross-country skiing team
After winning the silver medal in the men’s relay, Théo Schely, Hugo Lapalus, Mathis Desloges and Victor Lovera had a very busy schedule on Sunday 15 February. In between all the media attention, they took the time to celebrate the best result by a French quartet at the Olympic Games. A stage in the centre of Predazzo (Italy), a parade through the streets of the small town, a celebration at the Club France…
The party went on well into the night, according to images taken at 10:35pm by British cross-country skier James Clugnet and shared on Instagram. ” When you’re staying underneath the French cross-country relay after their silver medal,” he says, as chants are heard. Then another shot shows Hugo Lapalus lying in the middle of the road, surrounded by supporters of the Farté team who are sounding a chainsaw. ” I don’t think they’ll be the only ones not sleeping tonight,” writes the Grenoble native. His team-mate Andrew Musgrave commented with amusement: “So these are the Olympics!
Jumper Paige Jones retires at the age of 23
After finishing 28th in the large jump competition, American ski jumper Paige Jones announced that she was calling time on her career at the end of the Olympic Games. ” Thank you to the entire ski jumping family, it’s been quite an adventure,” she said in an Instagram post. With 75 World Cup starts in five years, she will have had her best team results, such as her 6th place in the mixed team event at the 2025 World Championships. She said she was now embarking on “a new chapter”, as she studies biomedical engineering.
Audience peaks for Sunday’s races
Rai, the public broadcaster that holds the rights for the 2026 Olympics, achieved an audience share of 24% on Sunday when the Italian cross-country skiing relay won bronze. 2.3 million viewers tuned in to watch the race, which was scheduled for lunchtime, according to the Italian Winter Sports Federation. Earlier in the afternoon, Lisa Vittozzi ‘s gold medal in the women’s biathlon pursuit drew a larger audience(2.6 million viewers), but with a lower audience share (13%).
On the other side of the Rhine, too, the audience figures were significant.ARD reported that 4.4 million Germans (44% audience share) watched the men’s biathlon sprint on Friday, even though it was scheduled during the week, as reported by T-Online.
However, these audiences were lower than those recorded in France. France 2 drew 5.4 million viewers for the women’s biathlon pursuit on Sunday, and 5 million two hours earlier for Les Bleus’ silver medal in the men’s cross-country skiing relay. Eurosport , which broadcasts to the whole of Europe, has not released its initial audience figures.
A long wait for handsets
It’s an atypical programme that the combined races are following in Val di Fiemme (Italy). They had to wait five days before competing in their second race. After the small jump gundersen on Wednesday 11th, they will only compete in the large jump gundersen on Tuesday 17th (competition at 10 am, cross-country at 1.45 pm)… before moving on to the team event the day after. Three official training sessions have been scheduled between the two individual events, and just one before the team competition.
The reason for this is primarily logistical: in order to spread out the flow of spectators, but also to make the best use of the venues, the three Nordic combined formats are being held on days when there are no cross-country skiing or ski jumping competitions. There are therefore only four days available in the fortnight, and only one of those is between the opening ceremony and Monday evening. It’s up to the 36 qualifiers to manage this special schedule.
In the last official training session before the big jump gundersen, France’s Marco Heinis distinguished himself with the fourth jump in the first run and the fifth in the next. He had already finished second in the second run the day before, on a springboard that is taking him an unusual amount of time to get to grips with.
At the same time, the combined events raced… in the continental cups. Not invited to the Olympic Games, most of them were in Lillehammer (Norway) on Saturday and Sunday to keep up the pace in the absence of a World Cup. France’s Léna Brocard had two top 5 finishes and Norway’s Ida Marie Hagen continued her series by winning the gundersen on Saturday.
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