A figure skating spin, above, captured with 49 photographs reveals the beauty of Isabeau Levito’s motion on ice. A downhill sequence simultaneously shows the slimmest of winning margins and the grandeur of the Dolomites. A visually stunning image of a backflip landed by Ilia Malinin captures his daring athleticism.
Here is a curated selection of moments captured by New York Times journalists at the 2026 Winter Games.
Men’s Figure Skating
The backflip was banned in competitive figure skating from 1977 to 2024. The French icon Surya Bonaly famously defied the rules and performed the move at the 1998 Nagano Olympics, but the trick has officially returned to the Olympic ice in Milan. America’s Ilia Malinin integrated this newly permitted stunt into his programs and awed a global audience.
Men’s Moguls
Cooper Woods of Australia soared in his last jump on the moguls course in Livigno. The top two finishers, Woods and Canada’s Mikaël Kingsbury, both finished their final runs with 83.71 points. The tiebreaker rules gave Woods the gold medal because he scored slightly higher on how cleanly he skied through the bumps. Three days later, Kingsbury, Canada’s most decorated freestyle skier, won gold in the men’s dual moguls.
Filming Skaters Close Up
For the first time ever, the Olympics allowed cameras on the ice. After skaters finished their programs, Jordan Cowan, a former competitive figure skater turned camera operator, glided onto the ice in an all-white tuxedo to film their reactions. Here he is capturing Alysa Liu’s joyful celebration just moments after her short program in the women’s singles competition.
While the World Watched the Skaters, We Watched the Coaches
When the endless hours of coaching were over, all they could do was watch. And some even found it hard to do that. Nerves, exhilaration, encouragement and sometimes heartbreak, it was all on display just steps from the ice when the women competed for figure skating gold on Thursday night in the free skate.
Women’s Short-Track Speedskating
In a dramatic women’s 1,000-meter short-track speedskating final, Xandra Velzeboer of the Netherlands took the Olympic title, her second gold medal at the Milan-Cortina Games.
Men’s Hockey
Tim Stützle scored Germany’s only goal against Team U.S.A. in the preliminary round of men’s hockey. The United States won the game 5-1 and advanced to the quarterfinals, while Germany went on to beat France in the play-off round.
Women’s Downhill
On a sun-filled day in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Breezy Johnson was the fastest in the women’s downhill to claim the first gold medal for the United States in these Games, just slipping past Emma Aicher of Germany, by 0.04 seconds, who won silver.
Women’s Snowboard Slopestyle
Zoi Sadowski-Synnott of New Zealand, pictured on the cannon rail, nabbed silver in the women’s snowboard slopestyle final, just 0.35 points behind gold medalist Mari Fukada of Japan.
Men’s Snowboard Cross
In snowboard cross, groups of four riders raced through a course of jumps and banked turns in each heat. The men’s final was close right until the end: Alessandro Hämmerle of Austria, in blue, was in third place for most of the race but pulled ahead on the final jump to win gold.
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