Hello everyone, and Happy Gymnastics Saturday!
If you missed our announcement in January, we’re mixing things up this month, bringing you Olympics coverage on top of your weekly gymnastics news brief.
The Olympics are always fun, since we get to learn about so many different sports and meet athletes from around the world. Plus, the women of Team USA are usually the highlight, and then there’s Snoop Dogg:
Of course, with every Olympics, there’s controversy. And when there’s Olympic controversy, it tends to shine a light on broader social issues.
With that in mind, I’m starting out our 2026 Milan Winter Olympic Games coverage with five questions I have going into Milan.
When will the Winter Olympics reach gender parity?
This Olympics is the closest we’ve ever gotten to parity at a Winter Games. Forty-seven percent of participants are women, according to the IOC, and 12 of the 16 sports are fully balanced in terms of athlete numbers.
We still have work to do: Nordic Combined is still a men-only event, and women still don’t have a four-person bobsleigh event. There are 116 total events, including 50 women-only events and 12 mixed events. By my math, that means men have 54 events, or four more than women.
That might not seem like a big gap, but when you unpack these numbers, they belie the gender parity in medal slots. The Paris Games were lauded as the first balanced Olympics, but what wasn’t as widely reported was that men had five more events than women, or 15 more medal opportunities. In Milan, men have 12 more medal slots than women.
I want to emphasize how great it is that women are the stars of this show and that we’ve come so far. But each of those 12 medals would mean more benefits from home countries, more sponsorship opportunities, and, well, more women having a goddam Olympic medal in their house.
Gender parity is great, but equality doesn’t happen until we have the same number of opportunities to medal.
Will athletes get political?
The Olympics might be the world’s biggest sportswashing event, and this one will probably be no different. The U.S. Vice President JD Vance has already made an appearance in Milan, along with his friends at Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Vance showed up to the first women’s ice hockey game, posing with some athletes for a cringe photo. Seriously, look at how uncomfortable everyone looks:
Are they smiling, or just showing their teeth? Who’s to say.
While there have been protests in the area in response to ICE, we haven’t heard much from the athletes themselves. I feel two ways about this: One, if you have a platform and attention, you should use it. Two, as a noted coward, I can’t expect this of people. Seriously, anyone who makes a statement about the current administration is inviting the mob, and I don’t want that for anybody.
Moreover, it must be tough to represent a country whose government doesn’t recognize your humanity, all while knowing that many of the other countries hate your guts.
A few athletes have made tepid comments about peace, and representing the best of America, etc., etc. Cross-country badass Jessie Diggins posted on Instagram that she is “racing for an American people who stand for love, for acceptance, for compassion, honesty and respect for others,” which, unfortunately, is a political stance, and kudos to her.
What will this teach us about LA28?
The 2028 Summer Games, meanwhile, will happen in Los Angeles just a few months before the 2028 U.S. presidential election.
If other home Games are any indication, Team USA will clean up there. Trump will take credit for each and every one of those medals (knowing him, he might actually take each and every one of those medals). Whatever his antics are during Milan, they will just be a sneak preview of what’s to come when the Games are at home.
Indeed, a State Department memo reads that these Olympics will be used to “promote the United States as a global leader in international sports.” The U.S. will also host this summer’s FIFA World Cup.
How will age change affect figure skating? And what the hell is Eteri Tutberidze doing here?
The biggest scandal of the 2022 Beijing Olympics was the Kamila Valieva controversy, wherein a 15-year-old Russian figure skater tested positive for a banned substance in the middle of the competition. Valieva was stripped of her team medal and placed on a five-year ban, while her coach Eteri Tutberidze faced no consequences. In fact, she’s back coaching at the Milan Olympics, having switched her allegiance to Georgia.
A WADA official says they’re “uncomfortable” with Tutberidze’s presence at the Olympics, and so am I. If you don’t remember, Tutberidze has a troubling habit of bringing a very young athlete to the Olympics, where they would compete (and, in a couple cases, break down) before disappearing forever. After Valieva, in the heat of the controversy, fell during her free skate, Tutberidze said to her, “Why did you let it go? Explain it to me, why? Why did you stop fighting completely? Somewhere after the Axel you let it go.”
In response to the scandal, the age limit to compete at the Olympics has been upped to 17. My hope is that this will mean less figure skating news: fewer tears, fewer rumors of abuse, and fewer images of athletes crumbling into dust in front of the world.
Hopefully, this time around, we can enjoy this gorgeous sport and learn more about it rather than debating the morality of punishing dehydrated children who took heart medication to help them spin faster.
Who will win?
Oh, right, the sports!
It’s unfortunate that we (yes, I, too) place so much emphasis on Team USA in the media. This is something that’s definitely pissed me off about Olympics coverage in the past. But as I’ve learned as a sports journalist, it’s partly out of necessity, as there are simply too many people. There are 2,900 athletes from 90 countries at these Olympics, and 50 women-only events.
Now that I’ve gotten that off my chest, and with apologies to all the talented women from other countries, here is a schedule of the biggest events happening for women over the next week, with notes on who to watch from Team USA.
What to watch
Saturday, Feb. 7
- Women’s CC 10km + 10km Skiathlon — Jessie Diggins (USA) will compete in her fourth and final Olympics. Do yourself a favor and watch her win gold in the women’s team sprint in 2018. It’s incredible:
- 3000m women’s speed skating
- Women’s ski jumping NH
Sunday, Feb. 8
- Women’s downhill — Alpine skiing legends Lindsey Vonn (USA) and Sofia Goggia (ITA) will face off here. Notably, Vonn will compete on a torn ACL, but her Friday training run went well.
- Figure skating team medals awarded after women’s free skate
- Biathlon mixed relay 4×6 km
- Snowboarding women’s parallel giant slalom
Monday, Feb. 9
- 1000m women’s speed skating — Miho Takagi (JPN) is the reigning Olympic champion, while Erin Jackson (USA) and Brittany Bowe (USA) are favorites for Team USA.
- Snowboarding women’s big air
Tuesday, Feb. 10
- Short track Mixed Team Relay
- Women’s team combined slalom
- Women’s CC Sprint Classic
- Luge women’s singles
- Mixed team ski jumping
Wednesday, Feb. 11
- Biathlon Women’s 15km Individual
- Luge women’s doubles
Thursday, Feb. 12
- Snowboarding women’s halfpipe — Chloe Kim (USA) goes for her third consecutive gold medal, weeks after tearing her labrum.
- Short track women’s 500m
- 5000m women’s speed skating
- Women’s Super-G
- Women’s CC 10km Interval Start Free
- Luge team relay
Friday 13 Feb
- Women’s snowboard cross
NCAA gymnastics standings and schedule
After Week 5
Oklahoma 197.725
Florida 197.575
LSU 197.519
Alabama 197.425
UCLA 197.375
Florida and UCLA are the latest teams to jump on the 198 train, with Florida getting a 198.0500 over Arkansas and UCLA earning a 198.1500 at home on Friday.
Jordan Chiles is still killing it, matching her season-high all-around score of 39.8750, including another 10 on floor.
Yesterday’s meet between Iowa State and West Virginia was, strangely, canceled. “We do not have enough student-athletes available to safely field a team against West Virginia,” said head coach Ashley Miles Greig. Hopefully more information will emerge in the coming days, but at the moment I’m not sure what might be behind this.
Yesterday was frontloaded with top teams, featuring Georgia at Arkansas, Kentucky at Auburn, Penn State at LSU, Alabama at Oklahoma, Utah at Arizona, and Florida at Missouri. Tonight features UCLA at Minnesota, and on Sunday, an exciting quad between Arizona, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Texas Woman’s.
Full standings and schedule at Road to Nationals, and CollegeGymNews has a recap here.
Listen now to The IX Sports Podcast & Women’s Sports Daily
We are excited to announce the launch of TWO new podcasts for all the women’s sports fans out there looking for a daily dose of women’s sports news and analysis.
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Elite gym news
Here is your February U.S. national team camp roster. We also have the list of registered athletes for the Winter Cup, held Feb. 20-22 in Louisville.
World Gymnastics released the qualification procedures for the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles. They also released a statement in response to the Swiss Federal Supreme Court’s decision on Jordan Chiles’ bronze medal. In sum, World Gymnastics takes no responsibility but says there will be stronger procedures in place in future competitions.
Laurie Hernandez will make her Broadway debut next month!
Aly Raisman appeared on Michelle Obama’s podcast.
Five at the IX
Hear from ice dancer Madison Chock, figure skater Amber Glenn, speed skater Brittany Bowe, and speed skater Erin Jackson as they chat with the media prior to the Opening Ceremonies:
| Mondays: Soccer |
| By: Annie Peterson, @AnnieMPeterson, AP Women’s Soccer |
| Tuesdays: Tennis |
| By: Joey Dillon, @JoeyDillon, Freelance Tennis Writer |
| Wednesdays: Basketball |
| By: Howard Megdal, @HowardMegdal, The IX Sports |
| Thursdays: Golf |
| By: Marin Dremock, @MDremock, The IX Sports |
| Fridays: Hockey |
| By: @TheIceGarden, The Ice Garden |
| Saturdays: Gymnastics |
| By: Jessica Taylor Price, @jesstaylorprice, Freelance Writer |