The Olympic Games are like the OG viral story.
Going back to when that might have referred to an outbreak of influenza, the Olympics arrive every two or four years to take over our sports and pop-culture consciousness.
One minute, it’s not something you’re thinking about, the next you’re hanging on every triple toe loop and double cork, deeply versed in curling strategy and 30 minutes in on scrolling the Instagram of your new favorite athlete.
Well, it’s that time again.
The Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Games — they’re co-hosted by metropolitan Milan and the Alps resort town of Cortina d’Ampezzo in Italy — begin this week, with the Opening Ceremony set for Friday at the iconic San Siro stadium.
Team USA, which finished fifth in the medal count in 2022, has high hopes of bettering that haul this time around.
Here’s The Post’s guide to the major plotlines to follow over the next two weeks as the world’s best vie for winter gold:
Queens of the slope
This was shaping up as the most dramatic tale of the Olympics.
Skiing legend Lindsey Vonn seemingly had reemerged as a medal contender in the women’s downhill, at the age of 41, following a five-year layoff and a knee replacement.
But disaster struck just last week in Vonn’s final tuneup race when she crashed and suffered a torn ACL.
Vonn has vowed to try to race anyway.
“I wish I wasn’t in this position, but this is where I am and I will do the best I can,” she said at an emotional news conference Tuesday.
The cruelly timed injury appears to dash her podium dreams. But the Winter Olympics have seen miracles before.
There’s another comeback in the works for one of America’s ski queens.
Mikaela Shiffrin, 30, is the most accomplished women’s skier in history — but her results at the Olympics have never quite matched that lofty status.
At the Beijing Games in 2022, she endured a meltdown — a kind of Biles on snow — with multiple DNFs and no medals from six events, her agony captured by NBC cameras for the world to see.
Then in 2024, she suffered a career-threatening puncture wound to her abdomen.
Now she’s back at the top of the sport, dominating the slalom races, and a redemptive gold medal is within reach.
In Quad we trust
The catchiest nickname in Milan belongs to one of the stone-cold gold-medal favorites.
Ilia Malinin, the 21-year-old American figure skating phenom, is dubbed the Quad God for his ability to land quadruple jumps that others can merely dream of.
There may not be a ton of tension in the men’s singles standings — Malinin’s difficulty scores basically ensure he could fall multiple times and still win — but the dude is worth the price of admission.
Malinin isn’t the only U.S. skater to watch. The American team is replete with inspiring stories.
Maxim Naumov qualified for the men’s team one year after his parents were killed, along with several others from the figure skating community, when their airplane flight collided with an Army helicopter near Washington, D.C.
The women’s team includes 20-year-old Alysa Liu, who retired from the sport in 2022 only to return two years later and claim last year’s world championship; the artistic 26-year-old Amber Glenn, the country’s oldest entrant in nearly a century; and the 18-year-old ingenue Isabeau Levito. More than enough charisma to go around.
Puck and roll
NHL players are back in the Olympics men’s hockey tournament for the first time since 2014, ramping up the caliber of play and anticipation by several orders of magnitude.
That means we could see something reminiscent of the 2010 final, when Sidney Crosby’s Golden Goal lifted Canada over the U.S. in overtime. Can Team USA, led by Rangers head coach Mike Sullivan, prevail this time around?
The U.S.-Canada rivalry, fueled by tensions in the “real world,” is the dominant story in the women’s tournament. The two countries have split all seven Olympics golds with Canada holding a 5-2 edge, but Hilary Knight’s U.S. squad has had the upper hand in recent showdowns.
You’ll hear talk about the hockey venue, as well. Construction on the Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena was delayed to the point that there were concerns over it being finished in time. The rink is also smaller than the typical NHL sheet. But calamity seems to have been avoided.
Cold war continues
Russia is barred from entering teams in these Olympics due to sanctions related to the invasion of Ukraine. However, a few Russian athletes have been cleared to participate, not under the flag but as Individual Neutral Athletes.
More intrusions from geopolitics: You could call the U.S.-Denmark preliminary-round men’s hockey game the Greenland Bowl. U.S. ICE agents have been dispatched to Italy in a “security role.”
For cheat’s sake
What about sporting scandals? Oh yeah, we’ve got something for you.
There was outrage after Canada cooked its lineup in a pre-Olympics meet to deny U.S. skeleton racer Katie Uhlaender the chance to qualify for a fifth Games. Not so nice, eh?
The funniest scandal belongs to the men’s ski jumping competition. In secretly filmed video footage, Norway was found to have cheated by — get this — manipulating the stitching to make the crotch area of its athletes’ suits bigger, which aids in aerodynamics. The coaches behind the scheme were banned, though the Norwegian jumpers in question are back in the competition.
Speed thrills
This has been called the strongest U.S. long-track speed skating team in a generation.
The first name to know: Jordan Stolz, a 21-year-old from Wisconsin, is a favorite in the 500-meter, 1,000-meter and 1,500-meter races.
Erin Jackson is back to defend her 500-meter gold. She’s joined by the veteran Brittany Bowe.
Repeat performers
Shoutout to the stalwarts running it back for Team USA.
Chloe Kim, still just 25, is going for a three-peat in the snowboarding halfpipe. Just try to stop her.
Cross-country great Jessie Diggins is skiing in her final Olympics at 34, and she’s in the medal mix across multiple events.
Elana Meyers Taylor, 41, returns to pilot the women’s bobsled and attempt to add to her collection of five medals. Kaillie Humphries, 40, is the defending champion in the monobob. They’re both moms.
Mountain toppers
There’s one new event for these Olympics.
In ski mountaineering, “skimo” if you’re in the know, athletes climb up the mountain with their skis on then race back down — with F1-style boot-packing pit stops in between.
It’s described as a cross between an aerobic event such as cross-country and a traditional speed event.
