While football fans may be counting down the hours until the Super Bowl starts, a global sporting event begins today. The opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics starts at 2p.m. ET, kicking off the official start of the Games, even though several sports - including ice hockey - have already started competing.
The 2026 Games includes more than two weeks of competition and this is a rundown of the 2026 Olympics by the numbers:
- This is the first time two cities have co-hosted the Olympics. The Italian cities of Milan and Cortina are about 250 miles apart, almost a five-hour drive.
- According to the International Olympic Committee, this will be the most widespread Games in Olympic history because the 13 venues holding competitions cover nearly 85-hundred (8,494) square miles of northern Italy.
- The country has previously hosted the Winter Olympics twice, first in 1956 in Cortina d’Ampezzo, and in 2006 in Turin. Italy also hosted the Summer Olympics in Rome in 1960.
- At the Games, athletes compete for "National Olympic Committees" (NOCs), not countries, which explains why territories like Puerto Rico and Hong Kong have their own teams.
- There are 92 NOCs representing over 29-hundred (2,916) athletes at the 2026 Olympics. Athletes from Russia and Belarus will also be competing as “Individual Neutral Athletes” (AIN) under a neutral flag since those countries were banned over the war in Ukraine.
- The U.S. will have the most athletes competing in this Olympics with 235 on Team USA, including three alternates. Canada is second with 211 athletes, followed by Italy with 195.
- Team USA includes 98 returning Olympians and they’ve won a combined 22 gold medals.
- This will be the fifth Olympic Games for seven of them, including alpine skier Lindsey Vonn, figure skater Evan Bates and ice hockey player Hilary Knight.
- Athletes will be competing in 116 events in 16 Olympic disciplines and there are eight new events debuting at the Winter Olympics. There’s also a new sport, ski mountaineering, the first since 2002.
- About 2-million fans are expected to attend the Winter Olympics this year.
Source: CBS News
Scott's Thoughts:
- It's a great weekend to be a sports fan!
- Wings. Going to need lots of wings for this weekend.
- I enjoy the summer Olympics more than winter.
- Today, the Olympics is brought to you by Ozempic. LOL. Not really. I just thought it sounded funny.