Team USA’s Hilary Knight (C) (21) watches the puck as they play Switzerland at Milano Rho Ice Hockey Arena in the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Olympics in Milan, Italy, on Monday, Feb. 10, 2026. USA won 5-0. | Scott G Winterton, Deseret NewsMeg WalterSun, February 15, 2026 at 4:00 AM UTC·5 min readFor some misguided reason, the Winter Olympics have a reputation for being less interesting than the Summer Olympics. In a 2018 KSL poll, 72% of readers indicated that they preferred watching the Summer Olympics of the Winter.
And I take that personally as a resident of the Winter Olympics past and future hoar site. I’ll admit, at this point in a snowless winter, I’m starting to wonder if we might be better suited to host the Summer Games, but I’m not in charge of those kinds of decisions. So as it stands, I am here to defend the Winter Games in preparation for their 2034 return to Salt Lake City. And I’ll take it one step further and say the cold weather Olympics are actually better than Summer simply by virtue of being way more intense.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementBecause most of them are happening ON ICE. Which is a surface as hard as concrete and also slippery. As anyone who has tried stepping onto an unsalted sidewalk after a Utah snowstorm can attest, falling on ice hurts. Really, really bad. And these athletes are just walking around on it! Some with knives attached to their shoes! Some, wearing skis, flying off an ice cliff into the air where they do flips and land on more ice! Some even try cleaning the ice! Maybe. I’m not totally sure how curling works.
I understand the urge to look at something like Ice Dancing and ask, “How, exactly, is this a sport?” or “What’s a twizzle?” but I think it’s very important to remember that the competitors are dancing ON ICE. And not just standing on ice and moving the rest of their body like the macarena, but moving their feet. Artfully. ON THE ICE. With knives attached to the bottom of their shoes.
The skill, and the potential danger in deploying the skill, becomes more apparent in figure skating, where competitors jump and spin around a bunch ON THE ICE. With knives attached to the bottom of their shoes. Which is plenty impressive already. But this year there’s a guy jumping and spinning and also DOING BACK FLIPS. ON THE ICE. With knives attached to the bottom of his shoes.
The Olympians that aren’t dancing and or flipping on the ice with knives attached to the bottom of their shoes are laying on a plank with long knives attached to the bottom of it flying down a chute of ice at a speed of 75 to 90 miles per hour. Or in a four-man sled that travels so fast down a chute of ice it can cause something called sled head from the soft tissue of the brain hitting the skull repeatedly.
Young fans cheer during a timeout as USA women’s hockey and Switzerland play at Milano Rho Ice Hockey Arena in Preliminary Round - Group A action at the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Olympics in Milan, Italy, on Monday, Feb. 10, 2026. USA won 5-0. | Scott G Winterton, Deseret NewsAnd sure, some of them are skiing, which is technically done on snow, not ice. But listening to the sound of the skis moving down the mountain during the Alpine race triggered a memory of the time I was skiing at a local resort and I turned onto a run thinking it was fresh snow when it was actually craggy-iced-over snow and I immediately fell and slid backward down the run, unable to resituate my skis for at least 60 seconds. I truly believed those were the final 60 seconds of my life. And I was moving barely at all. I could tell by the sound of the skis while watching the Alpine runs that that ice, too, is craggy and those skiers are moving at speeds most cars can’t legally drive. The crashes are rare, but when they happen, skiers have to be air-lifted off the mountain. I can’t think of a single Summer Games sport that requires rescue helicopters on standby.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementBut it’s not the skating or the skiing or the lugeing that most encapsulates the intoxicating mix of danger and entertainment of the Winter Olympics. The event that encapsulates the insanity of the Winter Olympics best is actually the biathlon.
Because the biathlon combines cross-country skiing and shooting. WITH A GUN.
First of all, cross-country skiing numbers among the most physically exhausting things I’ve ever done. And I’ve run three marathons and given birth to three children. One lap around the Olympic track would exhaust even the most fit among us. The biathloners ski multiple laps, and in between each one they complete two shooting tests — one standing and one laying down. Both tests require the competitors to shoot targets from 50 meters away, and any missed targets result in either a penalty loop or a minute added to overall time. Why? Because the inventor of the biathlon was a sadist, I guess. He (or she!) looked at physically exhausted cross-country skiers and said, “You know what they need? Rifles.”
I believe it takes a certain kind of person to voluntarily compete in the biathlon. A person who, perhaps, can, and will, disconnect from reality. A person, who, say, during an Olympic broadcast, confesses to cheating on their partner after winning the bronze in biathlon. Which is what happened with Norway’s Sturla Holm Laegreid on Tuesday. Or, say, a person who competes alongside a teammate from whom they stole credit cards and spent thousands of dollars on them, which is what biathlon-gold-medal-winner Julia Simon did and was convicted for in French court.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementDuring her trial, Simon said, “I can’t explain it. I don’t remember doing it. I can’t make sense of it.” Which, I believe is the only mental relationship one could have with competing in the biathlon. Or any of the events of the Winter Olympic Games, really.
And that’s what makes them, the Games and the possibly insane competitors, so hardcore. And so much better than the Summer Olympics.
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