It takes 21 days to form a habit and nine months to gestate a human baby, and apparently it takes four years to forget how outlandish the Winter Olympics are. I know we do this every four years: I know that every four years, someone on the internet points out the drastic difference between the physical hazards of the Winter and Summer Olympics, and then someone else points out that, yes, every sport in the Winter Olympics could kill you (and also, there’s curling). I know that in 1896, the Summer Olympics were like, “What if we organized pushing the biological human instincts to run, swim, and jump to their physical limits, and then graded it?,” and then a few decades later, the Winter Olympics emerged to be like, “Mmhmmm, but what if we did it with knives on our feet, or what if there were big, slippery rocks and brooms, or what if we had a gun?”
It’s well documented that the Winter Olympics events are entirely deranged, seemingly invented by enterprising knee surgeons who wanted to buy boats and predominantly appealing to competitors from the two wildest subcultures: rich and mountain. This is the event that has long offered us the elite sport of a guy flying down an ice tube on a greased-up cafeteria tray—only to have another guy come up and say, “OK, but what if we did it like bunk beds?” The Winter Games have continued to innovate new near-death experiences, and now, in 2026, you can tune in to Peacock to bear witness to a guy willingly flying down a mountain that has been specifically outfitted with other, smaller mountains, while wearing extra-long toothpicks strapped to his feet, all so that he can bump-bump-bump his way to the bottom like a toddler descending a staircase on Christmas morning—except the staircase is made of ice, and that toddler is a father, and now he’s flying across the finish line backward because he almost flew right off the mountain-made-of-mountains but somehow rebounded by doing an aerial flip to earn himself the silver medal in [checks notes] dual moguls. At which point he will pose with all of the other dads who compete in this sport of bumps and jumps and near-death experiences. And that’s the dual mogul, folks, the Winter Olympics’ newest game, which would make its Summer Olympics equivalent … breakdancing. Never forget.
I don’t want to put historic game against historic game here, but the closest the Summer Olympics have ever gotten to this kind of chaotic energy is that time Bob Costas got pink eye in 2014. We’re a little over halfway through, and between the cheating scandals, the juicing allegations, the unbelievable physical feats, and the one Ryan Lochte brain cell that most of the sticks-on-feet competitors seem to be passing around, I simply cannot believe the bounty of human experience we’ve been treated to in a little over a week’s time. Sure, the Summer Olympics are more popular, their events more conventionally comprehensible—but they simply don’t have fugitives being caught in the stands, sting operations for chronic phalange-based cheating, or a man setting down his skiing rifle and picking up the mic to confess to cheating on his girlfriend. There was a power outage four minutes after the first event commenced, for goodness’ sake.
Putting aside the medals, point systems, and finish lines, let’s take a look at all the Winter Games’ best cultural bumps and scandalous jumps to determine the most unexpected winners and losers of the Winter Olympics so far—and join us after the closing ceremony for what promises to be the even more unpredictable back half of the Games.
Winner: Hyaluronic Acid
Starting off with a bulge and a bang, the 2026 Winter Games officially kicked off with a dick-juicing scandal. Yes! After that French pole vaulter was unduly penalized by the laws of physics for having a huge schlong at the Summer Olympics, now we find out that Olympic ski jumpers have actually been chasing that third-leg advantage. And they will go to great lengths—about 2 centimeters—to get it. Now, you might be asking, in what world would a gigantic ding-a-ling make you more aerodynamic? Luckily, figuring out the extremely underhanded nature of enhancing one’s undercarriage is just part of the fun of the Winter Olympics.
As it turns out, any excess fabric in the crotch region of a ski jumper’s uniform can create a “sail-like” effect. With enough fabric down there, a skier’s suit could basically turn them into a flying squirrel. And according to research from the scientific publisher Frontiers, with even just an extra 2 centimeters down there, a jumper could fly an extra 5.8 meters than they would otherwise—enough distance to make the difference between silver and gold. Which is why the International Ski and Snowboard Federation (FIS) has very specific rules about “crotch height” for ski jumping uniforms, which is measured via laser …
Because a bigger schlong itself wouldn’t help with flying 5.8 more meters—but the ghost of a bigger schlong would. On the night before the opening ceremony of the 2026 Winter Games, the World Anti-Doping Agency announced that it would be investigating the junk of some still-unnamed ski jumpers, after claims emerged that some competitors may have temporarily injected their penises with hyaluronic acid when they were measured for their Olympic suits, effectively … juicing their dicks for the FIS’s measuring lasers and then letting them de-juice come competition time, leaving behind those coveted extra 2 extra centimeters of sweet, sweet crotch sail. And if WADA finds evidence that it worked—well, that’s a better advertisement for hyaluronic acid than Eva Longoria ever could have provided. The Winter Olympics, man—can you believe this shit?
Loser: Big ACL
If the anterior cruciate ligament is so damn important, you’d think that straight-up not having one would be a bigger deal. Eighteen-year-old Italian skier Flora Tabanelli just won bronze in the big air with a busted one, and a few days before she was set to appear in the Olympic Alpine skiing women's downhill, formerly retired and extremely successful Olympian Lindsey Vonn announced that she would still be competing despite rupturing her ACL at a World Cup downhill race in Switzerland only nine days prior. Internet athletes said that it was impossible. Doctors said that it was maybe fine, given that Vonn’s an elite athlete with other muscles to compensate for her partially snapped rubber bands and because Alpine skiing doesn't require as much cutting and pivoting as other sports. Still, Alpine skiing is the fastest ski event in the Olympics; the human body and all of its ligaments rocket down a snow-covered mountain at around 80 mph …
And then Vonn smoked her downhill training run, and everyone wondered whether we’d been bamboozled by big ACL. Who needs ’em, right? Unfortunately, the mountain also had plans. Thirteen seconds into her opening downhill run, Vonn’s pole caught one of the gates as she was skiing down at 70 mph, sending her into the air and back to the ground, and shattering her left leg into several pieces.
Vonn did not blame her torn ACL for her fall, and she said that it would be impossible to know whether her original injury had anything to do with her pole catching that gate. She said simply that every skier chooses to take a risk when they step up to the starting gate: “Even if you are the strongest person in the world, the mountain always holds the cards." But this is another hit in a long line of hits to the ACLs—which we know absolutely cannot take that hit.
Winner: Bullying!
The first story of the Winter Games to really break Olympic-stan containment already had a culture all its own: Minions. Of course we all know that, per Despicable Me lore, the Minions forged their own civilization in an ice cave for most of the 20th century so that they wouldn't have to choose which one of those pesky World War I or II “villains” to serve. So they are no strangers to winter climates! But they are an unusual thematic choice for a figure skating program …
Which is precisely why Spanish skater Tomás Guarino had been competing with a Minions short program all season long, complete with a yellow T-shirt, little blue overalls, and of course, a Minions-themed score. Guarino, who used to skate to “Cotton Eyed Joe,” prides himself on his unique thematic choices or, as he says, bringing “joy and a playful style to the ice.” But that joy was ripped away when, days before the opening ceremony, Guarino was banned from using his Minions music due to copyright clearance issues. There was only one thing left to do: relentlessly bully all corporations holding up the presence of Minions at the Winter Games. And it’s a little unclear which part of the bullying worked: Guarino has said that Universal gave up the goods, while Chantal Epp, the CEO of the licensing service ClicknClear, has said that ClicknClear elected to cover the costs of licensing Guarino’s Minions music. Maybe the answer is in that ice cave, but either way, Minions ended up where they belonged: at the Olympics.
Loser: Being a Cheater (Romantic)
Even after dick-gate and Minions-gate and ACL-gate—oh my—we were sitting at a pretty standard level of Winter Olympics chaotic neutral. Until, that is, a Norwegian man named Sturla Holm Lægreid swooped in to win bronze in the men’s individual biathlon and do a perfect imitation of your most chaotic friend who storms into every meal with a story to tell. Lægreid got in front of a mic after his third-place finish and simply … word-vomit confessed to cheating on his girlfriend. “Six months ago, I met the love of my life, the most beautiful, kindest person in the world,” Lægreid told Norwegian broadcaster NRK, after first thanking the fellas who wax his skis. He continued with the twist of the century: “And three months ago, I made the biggest mistake of my life and cheated on her, and I told her about it a week ago.”
A few things:
- Bronze??? An Olympic medal is nothing to scoff at, but third place is simply not high enough to counterbalance this kind of confession. Only gold can make up for infidelity. Maybe silver, if it’s one of the particularly death-defying sports or one where you have to squish yourself into a cannon.
- Six months??? Lægreid had been dating this woman for only six months, and he knew she was the love of his life, and he still cheated on her???
- Three months??? Lægreid made it only three months before cheating on—let me just check the transcript here—the love of his life???
It’s positively absurd that we’re now privy to this many details about his personal life, but the details themselves are certainly more absurd. But Lægreid wasn’t done yet! “It has been the worst week of my life,” he said. “I told her a week ago, and then it ended, of course. I am not ready to give up. I hope that committing social suicide can perhaps show how highly I love her.”
A few more things:
- The worst week of HIS life???
- He waited three months to tell her???
- A week before he LEFT FOR THE OLYMPICS?!?
There is simply no way to sort out what could go through a man’s mind to make him think that telling the world he cheated on this woman would make her feel better about it. Perhaps it’s the same line of logic that would make someone, in the middle of a round of cross-country skiing, say, I think I’d like to shoot a gun now. Or perhaps it’s the same lack of impulse control that apparently got Lægreid banned from the 2023 Biathlon World Cup when he accidentally fired his rifle in his hotel room. To this still mostly anonymous woman, we all say: Girl, don’t do it! Don’t take him back.
Winner: The Biathlete Who Stole Credit Cards
Maybe it’s because of the adrenaline, maybe it’s because of the extreme cardiovascular demands cutting off air supply to other vital organs like the brain—but something about the biathlon seems to drive its athletes to behave like the wayward teens of Euphoria. A day after Sturla Holm Laegreid made his confession, the wider world learned that the French biathlete Julia Simon, who’d just won gold in the women’s 15-km biathlon, was convicted of theft and credit card fraud just last year. Using Justine Braisaz-Bouchet’s credit card information, she made more than $2,300 in online purchases, and when she was caught, she also confessed to making purchases with the team physiotherapist’s credit card between 2021 and 2022, a crime she had been denying for three years. As a result, Simon was fined 30,000 euros (half of which was suspended) and banned from competing in the biathlon for six months (five of which were suspended so that she could go to the Olympics, where she ultimately won gold, while Braisaz-Bouchet placed 80th). Is credit card fraud good? No. Did Julia Simon still win a gold medal, cement herself as the bad girl of Milan Cortina, and not ever really get super-punished for stealing her teammate’s credit card? Yes. Actually, she won two golds.
Draw: Being a Cheater (Canadian)
As far as I can tell, the Olympic curlers have been in Cortina sweeping the floor and sliding around stones for … I want to say the past four months? They kicked off the Olympics, at which point we met the Curling Baby, learned that basically every mixed doubles curling competitor is named some variation of Corey, and tried to ship the mixed doubles teams that weren’t already married. But things didn’t really get interesting until the phrase “hog line” got hissed across the ice.
See, curling isn’t a sport moderated by referees so much as it is compelled by something called “The Spirit of Curling.” And given that “The Spirit of Curling” handbook states that “curlers never knowingly break a rule of the game, nor disrespect any of its traditions,” it’s basically up to the players themselves to monitor fair play on the ice and confess if they accidentally broke a rule. This is nice and honorable, but ripe for exploitation—which brings us to the Canada-Sweden match.
The no. 1 rule in curling is: You can’t touch the stone twice. And apparently the Canada men’s team are such known double touchers that Sweden (allegedly) set up a sting operation to catch them giving the stone an extra poke after it had crossed the hog line (the actual name of the line where players must let go of the stone). This led to a confrontation—a curling confrontation!—on the ice between Sweden’s Oscar Eriksson and Canada’s Marc Kennedy (the poker), which has, naturally, led to a slew of Heated Rivalry edits. For curling! The thing is, Kennedy did tap the stone over the hog line, and whether accidental or intentional, the Spirit of Curling states that Canada should fess up to the transgression. Instead though, Kennedy told Eriksson to “fuck off,” and now Canada is accusing Sweden of premeditatedly planting unauthorized cameras on the hog line. This is all very against the Spirit of Curling, and I positively never want it to end.
Loser: The Evil Ice Dancers From France (and Their Evil Judge, Too)
Much more than curling, ice dancing is consistently an event with plenty of interpersonal mayhem at play. Because it’s hard to ice dance that closely with someone—with that much risk of losing a limb to knife-shoes—without wanting to make out with that person at some point. And, of course, it’s hard for couples who are making out and working together to not want to break up with each other. The ties between ice dancing partners range from married to platonic, from will-they-won’t-they to amicable exes, and of course, the best option …
But this year, the worst possible kind of pairing dropped: ice dancers who had only been dancing together for less than a year before the Olympics for pretty gross reasons. While most ice dancing pairs are together since adolescence, the French pair of Guillaume Cizeron and Laurence Fournier Beaudry were a partnership of convenience: Cizeron’s former partner retired, and later wrote a book in which she said he was controlling, demanding, and critical, while Beaudry’s former partner and current boyfriend was suspended from competing due to a still unresolved sexual maltreatment case. Before the event, the Toronto Star covered this unsavory set of affairs in a piece with an appropriately dramatic headline: “An aura of sinister energy hangs over ice dance at the Winter Olympics.” And for a time, it seemed that Canada and the USA could come together to defeat this Double Axis of Evil, but following the extremely suspicious scores from a French judge, Cizeron and Beaudry took the gold. This is not what ice dancing is all about!
Draw: International Fugitives
Truly, what else could cap off this celebration of the midway point other than a Trap-style scenario wherein one’s inability to stay away from the ultimately compelling Milan Cortina Winter Games is what leads to their criminal capture. Despite being wanted by the Italian police for the past 16 years, a Slovak fugitive couldn’t help but return to Milan to cheer on his national ice hockey team in its opening game last week. The 44-year-old man was ultimately found when he checked into a campsite on the outskirts of Milan, and arrested for a string of thefts he committed in 2010. But here’s the thing: The Slovakian hockey team has now advanced to the quarterfinals as the 3-seed, above perennial powerhouses like Sweden and Finland. Ask any of the Slovak stars—Tomas Tatar, Juraj Slafkovsky, Erik Cernak—and I’m sure they’d say that there’s really only one thing left for these bonkers Winter Olympics to do: Release the fugitive!
An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that Sturla Holm Lægreid is Swedish; he is Norwegian.
