Day 0: Cell phones on silent
From The GIST (hi@thegistsports.com)
Let the games begin!
Buongiorno and welcome to our first daily Olympic newsletter of the Milano Cortina Games. Every Monday through Friday, we’ll be here breaking down the biggest storylines, tallying up the latest medal count (starting on Monday!), curating the can’t-miss events, and so much more. The next viral chocolate muffin? Yep, we’ll have that too.
- Speaking of coverage, of course we didn’t forget about the Big Game. Keep an eye out for our Super Bowl preview on Sunday, along with a The Group Chat edition celebrating the day. We contain multitudes.
🏒 The puck didn’t drop for Team Canada’s women’s hockey opener vs. Finland yesterday: The teams agreed to postpone the preliminary match until February 12th after 13 Finnish players came down with or are quarantining due to norovirus. Patience is a virtue.
- A few Canucks did hit the ice though: Italian-Canadians Kayla Tutino and Kristin Della Rovere lit the lamp in Italy’s 4–1 win over France, the host nation’s first-ever Olympic women’s hockey dub. Bellissima.
❤️🩹 As for the men’s team, there’s been yet another injury replacement: Forward Seth Jarvis (Carolina Hurricanes), a member of Canada’s gold medal–winning 4 Nations Face-Off squad, will replace Brayden Point (Tampa Bay Lightning), who suffered a knee injury last month.
🥌 Power outages aside, it’s been a fantastic start for Canada’s mixed doubles curling team, but the best win for partners-in-stones (and life) Jocelyn Peterman and Brett Gallant came in yesterday’s final match: A 7–2 victory over reigning Olympic champion and medal favorite Italy.
- Though their perfect opening run was sullied by this morning’s 7–5 loss to Team USA, the duo can bounce back tomorrow at 4:05 a.m. ET against Great Britain. Ready to rock.
🏂 The 12-snowboarder men’s big air final is set after yesterday’s qualification round. Headlining the star-studded field? Reigning gold medalist Yiming Su of China, two-time X Games gold medalist Hiroto Ogiwara of Japan, and Canadian Olympic debutant Francis Jobin. Steezy.
⛸️ The fan favorite figure skating action begins with this weekend’s team event, a three-day competition featuring 10 countries, including the reigning gold and silver medalists, the U.S. and Japan.
- These two nations remain the ones to beat, especially after Canada’s top ice dance pair, 2024 world champions Deanna Stellato-Dudek and Maxime Deschamps, withdrew from the team competition due to injury.
TOGETHER WITH Proline
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The GIST: Preparing for the Games is no easy feat, never mind adding in an untimely injury. Sadly, that’s exactly what happened to beloved Canadian snowboarder Mark McMorris and iconic American skier Lindsey Vonn. Let’s discuss the latest on these Olympic powerhouses.
🏂 McMorris misses big air competition: The 32-year-old was forced to withdraw from the event after suffering a head injury during Wednesday’s practice runs. Still searching for that elusive Olympic gold, McMorris’ podium hopes now rest on next week’s slopestyle event, where the Regina product has already earned bronze the last three Games.
- It’s not the first time McMorris has faced adversity ahead of the Olympics. In 2017, he was hospitalized for 10 days with life-threatening injuries from a backcountry crash in Whistler, BC. Less than a year later, he won bronze in Pyeongchang. We’ve seen this film before.
🎿 Vonn to ski for fourth career Olympic medal, Sunday at 5:30 a.m. ET: Thought the comeback was over after she ruptured her ACL last week? Think again. A normal person shouldn't ski on such an injury, but Vonn isn’t a normal person; she’s an Olympian, with enough strength in her legs to compensate for her unstable knee. That’s why she’s still training like a beast, knee brace and all.
- Boasting an ironclad reputation as one of the greatest skiers of all time, 41-year-old Vonn has nothing left to prove — or if you ask her, she has nothing to lose. A medal favorite before the injury, now Vonn’s ready for one more attempt at 90 seconds of glory.
TOGETHER WITH RBC Training Ground
👋 Meet Olympian Marion Thénault, a Canadian freestyle skiing aerialist and RBC Training Ground alum. Here are some fun facts about this high-flying powerhouse:
🚀 She’s literally a rocket scientist: When Thénault’s not soaring off ski jumps, she’s studying aerospace engineering. Taking “high performance” to a whole new altitude.
🤝 She’s a masterful mentor: A gymnast-turned-aerialist, Thénault’s teaching the next generation of freestyle skiers how to own the sky through RBC Training Ground.
🥇 She’s a history maker: A member of the mixed team aerials squad, Thénault helped Canada win its first Olympic medal in the discipline in 20 years at the 2022 Beijing Games.
Next on Thénault’s flight path? More podiums, more progress, and maybe even a spacecraft or two. The sky’s the limit with RBC helping to power her journey.
In partnership with RBC Training Ground, we’re spotlighting RBC Olympians and RBC Training Ground alumni ahead of the Milano-Cortina 2026 Olympic Games.Event | ⏰ | 👀 |
| 🏅⛷️ Men’s Downhill final | Tomorrow at 5:30 a.m. | 🇨🇦 Brodie Seger, Cam Alexander, Jack Crawford |
| 🏅🏂 Men’s Big Air final | Tomorrow at 1:30 p.m. | 🇨🇦 Francis Jobin |
| 🏒 Women’s hockey prelims | Tomorrow at 3:10 p.m. | 🇨🇦 Canada vs. 🇨🇭 Switzerland |
Welcome to our new section on the culture of the Games, courtesy of The Group Chat. Here’s what’s buzzing in The GIST HQ’s Slack channel as the Olympics get underway.
- 🇨🇦🇺🇸 Tate McRae diplomacy
- 😳 Another crotch-based scandal (see Part I here)
- 💅 Which country we’re most excited to see during the
Parade of Nations’Fit Parade
Today’s email was brought to you by Alessandra Puccio and Lisa Minutillo. Editing by Katie Kehoe Foster. Fact-checking and ops by Elisha Gunaratnam. Ads by Alessandra Puccio and Lisa Minutillo. Managing edits by Lauren Tuiskula. Head of content Ellen Hyslop.