Gearing up for Italian job

With their final preparations gaining traction on ice and snow, Chinese athletes have hit the home stretch, gearing up for Milano-Cortina 2026 in high spirits and aiming to prove their success at Beijing 2022 was more than a flash in the pan.

Laced up and pumped up — China's ice and snow sports contingents have gone all out on their final push toward the 2026 Winter Olympics, with established champions and young hopefuls seeking to fine-tune their respective crafts as the 100-day countdown to the Feb 6 opening starts on Wednesday.

The 2026 edition features 116 medal events — seven more than Beijing 2022 — to be contested at 13 venues spread out from Milan's urban area to Italy's northern mountain regions, including Cortina d'Ampezzo, Bormio and Livigno, all renowned Italian Alps resort clusters.

As an emerging winter sports contender, backed up by its record nine-gold campaign at its home Games, the Chinese delegation is expected to continue demonstrating its progress in expanding its strength from a limited number of ice events to more snow disciplines, led by reigning Olympic champions such as freeski star Eileen Gu, snowboarding phenom Su Yiming and aerials veteran Xu Mengtao.

Another impressive Olympic campaign, following the pinnacle of Beijing 2022, is very much needed to maintain the country's surging momentum in winter sports, with over 300 million people engaged in ice and snow activities. Since Beijing won the bid to host the 2022 Games, public consumption of winter sports and tourism packages has emerged as a key contributor to the growth of China's overall sports industry.

"Our teams should push ahead with their preparations (for Milano-Cortina 2026) with perseverance and resilience, carrying on the fighting spirit from Beijing 2022," Gao Zhidan, president of Chinese Olympic Committee, said during his recent visit to the national winter sports training center.

"I hope our athletes will cherish the opportunity to compete for national pride, with unwavering confidence in their ability to showcase the strength, spirit and image of our country."

A shift in strength

A traditional powerhouse in ice events such as short-track speed skating and figure skating, in recent seasons, Team China has seen its competitive edge tilt toward snow, after several of its national skating programs hit a patch of rough ice due to stagnant talent development and the surging progress of international opponents.

The country's most decorated winter sports team, the short-track speed skating squad, has already felt the heat from tougher international races entering the Olympic season, underlined by its subpar performances from the first two legs on the 2025-26 ISU Short Track World Tour earlier this month.

The once top-notch team, which has contributed 12 Olympic gold medals to China's all-time haul of 22 since 1980, struggled to keep up with the scintillating pace of red-hot powerhouses Canada and South Korea at the two legs in Montreal, where it only managed to claim one gold from the mixed 2,000m relay during the opening leg on Oct 9.

With the tour resuming action on Nov 20 in Gdansk, Poland, the team will attempt to step it up a gear, sparing no effort in trying to rise to the ultimate challenge in Milan, said defending men's 500m Olympic champion Liu Shaoang.

"It's a good lesson for the Olympics. I'm very happy with the results, especially that I had a teammate in the final," Liu said after winning a silver medal in men's 500m final A at the second leg in Montreal on Oct 18, followed by teammate Sun Long at third.

"We want the same in Milan, to get to as many finals as possible together, because that will help us earn better shots at the medals," said Liu, who helped China win the mixed relay at the opening leg with a last-lap pass.

China's figure skating team is, perhaps, the program struggling the most across all ice disciplines, having to count on the returning pair of Sui Wenjing and Han Cong, who last week made a strong comeback from indefinite retirement by finishing third at the ISU Grand Prix Cup of China, to bolster its chances in Milan.

Some inspiring progress elsewhere on ice has kept fans intrigued, though.

The Chinese women's curling team, captained by Wang Rui, unexpectedly beat world No 1 Canada 7-6 to win the Pan Continental Championships title on Sunday in Virginia, Minnesota, finishing the warmup tournament with a clean 9-0 record all the way from the round-robin stage to back up its medal ambitions in Milan.

All eyes on Livigno

The Livigno Snow Park, located on the Alpine plateau in Lombardy, is expected to become the focus of Chinese fans in February, with the majority of the country's elite freestyle skiing and snowboarding contenders, led by Gu and Su, are expected to land more jaw-dropping tricks and medals at the resort cluster.

Despite an injury she suffered at a training camp in August in New Zealand, freeski superstar Gu, who won two golds in big air and halfpipe in Beijing — her mother's home city — remains the only runaway leader across all disciplines in China's snow sports legion.

Her appearance, refreshed, sound and healthy, at a fashion show last week in Shanghai has reassured fans of her readiness for the Olympics, as the 22-year-old 18-time World Cup title winner also confirmed on social media that she's fit enough for the final push.

"Warming it back up," Gu posted on her Weibo account on Sept 19 with a video showing her complete a string of tricks on rails, pipes and slopes during a training session in New Zealand.

The other snow star to watch has to be Su, who recently set the snowboard community abuzz by posting video proof of him landing back-to-back 1980s in one run during a training camp in Switzerland.

The sequence, posted on Oct 9, saw the reigning Olympic big air champion execute a clean backside 1980 with a melon grab, immediately followed by another 1980 from his opposite stance with a tail grab, becoming the world's first snowboarder to pull off the dual trick in one run.

"Just keep unlocking new tricks," Su posted on Weibo, rekindling confidence that he can defend his gold in Livigno.