The first official day of the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Olympics featured the awarding of the initial gold medal and crucial preparations by star athletes. Medal events included the women's 20 km skiathlon, women's 3000m speed skating, men's big air snowboarding, and women's normal hill ski jumping.
Swiss skier Franjo von Allmen claimed the first gold of the Games, winning the men's downhill with a time of 1:51.61, narrowly beating Italy's Giovanni Franzoni. American skier Lindsey Vonn completed her second training run for Sunday's downhill event, posting a time two seconds faster than her previous run, just eight days after an ACL injury.
In other events, American-born Chinese freestyle skier Eileen Gu recovered from a fall in her first run to qualify for the women's slopestyle final. Meanwhile, the women's hockey tournament faced disruptions due to a norovirus outbreak, affecting teams like Finland and Switzerland, though the scheduled match between Switzerland and Canada proceeded with precautions.