The 2026 Milano Cortina Winter Olympics officially get underway on Friday, February 6, with the Opening Ceremony, which features the flag bearers from every participating country making the march alongside the country’s flag and their countrymates who will be

The colors signify five continents: Africa, Asia, the Americas, Europe, and Oceania. According to Rule 8 of the Olympic Charter, “The Olympic symbol expresses the activity of the Olympic Movement and represents the union of the five continents and the meeting of athletes from throughout the world at the Olympic Games.”

Team USA bobsledders Kaysha Love and Hunter Powell both started off their careers as track and field stars at the University of Nevada, but after Kaysha made the switch in 2022, she convinced Hunter to try the sport two years later. In July 2025, the couple got engaged, and now they’re heading to their first Olympics together as fiancés.

The 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Olympics’ early events continued on day -1 ahead of Friday's opening ceremony. After opening the games on day -2 as the first event to start competitive play, curling continued with wins for the U.

It’s been 106 years since “ice hockey,” so called to differentiate it from the game that’s played on grass, made its Olympic debut, the Winnipeg Falcons winning the historic first gold medal at Antwerp, Belgium in 1920, representing Canada.

Coubertin first created the iconic design in 1913, at a time when the amount of countries competing in the Games were significantly smaller than today. The widely believed notion is that the rings and the five individual colours - blue, black, yellow, green and red - represent five inhabited continents, with the Americas counting as one.