While 2024 marked a Summer Games year, Americans in winter sports are coming off collectively, arguably, their best season on snow and ice in recent history.
That success could propel the U.S. to its best Winter Games in over a decade after finishing fourth and fifth in total medals at the Olympics in 2018 and 2022.
Here’s a U.S.-centric breakdown of storylines and key athletes going into the 2024-25 winter season, the last full season before the 2026 Winter Olympics and Paralympics in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy:
Alpine Skiing: Mikaela Shiffrin stars despite injury
In 2022-23, Mikaela Shiffrin broke the record for career Alpine skiing World Cup wins. In 2023-24, her season was shortened by a Jan. 26 downhill crash. She suffered ligament damage in her left leg and an ankle sprain. She was sidelined for an 11-race stretch of the 39-race season, yet still led all women with nine race victories.
Shiffrin is now up to 97 career World Cup wins. This season, which starts in October, she can become the second athlete to win 100 individual World Cup events in any winter sport. Retired Norwegian cross-country skier Marit Bjørgen won 114.
At next February’s world championships in Saalbach, Austria, more history is at stake. With one victory, Shiffrin would break the record for career gold medals at Alpine worlds in modern history (currently seven). She is also one shy of the all-time total medals record for Alpine worlds (15).
While Swiss Marco Odermatt continues to dominate the men’s tour, River Radamus became the youngest American man to make a World Cup podium in nearly a decade this past February. Radamus, 26, shares a hometown with Shiffrin (Edwards, Colorado).
Cross-Country Skiing: Jessie Diggins joined by youth
Jessie Diggins, an Olympic medalist of every color, is coming off the most successful season ever for an American cross-country skier. For a second time, she won the World Cup overall title, which crowns the world’s best all-around skier combining season-long results across distances and the classic and freestyle techniques.
This season presents an opportunity to accomplish something new. At the biennial world championships, the U.S. women have a chance to win their first relay medal after finishing fourth or fifth at each of the last six worlds.
The U.S. also has an emerging men’s standout in 24-year-old Alaskan Gus Schumacher. Last February, he became the youngest American to win a World Cup cross-country skiing race and the first American man to win one in a decade. The U.S.’ only men’s Olympic cross-country medal came in 1976 (Bill Koch, silver).
Figure Skating: Malinin, Chock/Bates back as world champs
U.S. figure skating is coming off winning two titles at a single world championships for the first time since 1996. This past March, Ilia Malinin, 19, earned his first world title. Ice dancers Madison Chock, 32, and Evan Bates, 35, repeated as world champions.
This season is key, given results at world championships determine how many entries nations receive in each event at the 2026 Olympics. Plus, worlds will be held at home in Boston.
Malinin earned his world title with the best collection of jumps in one program in history. Looking ahead, he has teased trying to become the first skater to land a quintuple jump in competition.
Chock and Bates, the oldest couple to win an ice dance world title, are coming off their first undefeated season, though their margin of victory at worlds was the smallest in dance in a decade. They got married in June. In recent years, they have decided each offseason whether to continue competing. They signed up for this fall’s Grand Prix Series. Come January, they can tie the record of six career U.S. ice dance titles held by Meryl Davis and Charlie White.
The U.S. is getting deeper in the women’s event in the absence of the once-dominant Russians. Every international Winter Olympic sport federation banned athletes from Russia and Belarus shortly after the invasion of Ukraine, and all of those bans remain in place.
Isabeau Levito is coming off silver at worlds, the best finish for an American woman in eight years. Amber Glenn is coming off her first senior national title. Alysa Liu, the 2019 and 2020 U.S. champion and 2022 World bronze medalist, returned to competition last weekend for the first time in more than two years.
Freestyle Skiing: Alex Ferreira’s perfect season
The U.S.’ best freestyle skier doesn’t have an Olympic gold medal yet, but looks like an early favorite for 2026.
Alex Ferreira, a bronze medalist in 2018 and silver medalist in 2022, won all seven of his ski halfpipe competitions in 2023-24, a year after some suggested he quit the sport after two hard crashes. This season, he may have to contend with Nico Porteous of New Zealand, who began easing his way back into competition last winter for the first time since winning the 2022 Olympic title.
In 2026, Ferreira can become the first man to win an Olympic medal of every color in an individual event on snow.
Also last season, 12 different U.S. men and women made a World Cup podium in aerials, moguls or the new Olympic event of dual moguls. The group is led by Jaelin Kauf, the 2022 silver medalist in women’s moguls, and Winter Vinecki, who won three of the six women’s aerials World Cups.
One of those podium finishers, Alli Macuga, is one of three sisters who could make the Olympic team in three different skiing disciplines. Sam, the oldest, is a ski jumper. Lauren, the middle sister, is an Alpine skier.
Three siblings have competed on the same U.S. Winter Olympic team twice, according to Bill Mallon of the OlyMADMen: Alpine skiers Barbara, Bob and Marilyn Cochran in 1972 and bobsledders Curtis, Hubert and Paul Stevens in 1932.
Hockey: Changes for U.S. women, NHL returns to Olympics
Since taking silver at the 2022 Olympics, the U.S. women’s hockey team brought in a new coach (John Wroblewski), named a new captain (Hilary Knight), welcomed a new world championship MVP (Laila Edwards, the first Black woman to play for the senior national team) and welcomed back Kendall Coyne Schofield from maternity leave.
At the 2023 Worlds, the U.S. snapped its losing streak to Canada in major tournament finals. At the 2024 Worlds, Canada reclaimed the title on a golden goal. Next April’s worlds in Czechia may decide the 2026 Olympic favorite.
For the men, the NHL has reached a preliminary agreement to participate in the Olympics for the first time since 2014.
The U.S., which last won gold with the Miracle on Ice in 1980, could field a team with Auston Matthews (2023-24 NHL leading goal scorer), goalie Connor Hellebuyck (2023-24 Vezina Trophy winner) and the Hughes brothers (Jack, Luke, Quinn). Yes, there could be three sisters and three brothers in the 2026 U.S. Olympic delegation.
Pittsburgh Penguins coach Mike Sullivan has already been named the U.S. men’s Olympic coach.
Paralympic Sports: Nordic skiers, snowboarders lead
Recent U.S. success in Para biathlon, cross-country skiing and snowboarding at Paralympic Games has continued since 2022.
Last season, Paralympic champions Oksana Masters and Kendall Gretsch won world championships in biathlon, while Masters added World Cup victories in cross-country skiing.
Masters, the most decorated U.S. Winter Paralympian in history, and Gretsch then returned to their summer sports at the Paris Games. Masters added two more cycling golds, while Gretsch added triathlon silver.
In snowboard, five Americans won banked slalom races at the final World Cup of last season: Paralympic gold medalists Noah Elliott, Brenna Huckaby and Mike Minor, plus Darian Haynes and Peggy Martin. The biennial world championships return this season in March at Big White, British Columbia.
In hockey, the U.S. captured the last four Paralympic titles, but rival Canada snapped the Americans’ 41-game win streak in the world championship final in May. Come 2026, the U.S. can bid to become the first nation to win five consecutive hockey titles at the Olympics or Paralympics.
Short Track: Kristen Santos-Griswold’s record medal haul
Kristen Santos-Griswold won a medal in all five of her events at last March’s world championships as the U.S. women’s short track team had its best worlds since the sport was added to the Olympic medal program in 1992.
At the last Olympics, Santos-Griswold placed fourth in the 1000m, after which she debated quitting. Now, she’s in strong position to win the first U.S. women’s short track medal at the Olympics since 2010.
Santos-Griswold could be challenged this season by South Korea’s biggest star, Choi Min-Jeong, who sat out 2023-24.
Sliding Sports: Return of Elana Meyers Taylor, Kaillie Humphries
Five-time Olympic medalist Elana Meyers Taylor returned last season from her second childbirth. Three-time Olympic gold medalist Kaillie Humphries plans to return this season after having her first child in June.
Also last season, Mystique Ro became the first American to win a World Cup skeleton race in eight years. U.S. lugers won a doubles World Cup for the first time in 18 years, and a women’s doubles team won a world championships medal ahead of that event’s Olympic debut.
This season, North America hosts both world championships — luge in Whistler, Canada, in February and bobsled and skeleton in Lake Placid, New York, in March.
Snowboarding: Chloe Kim makes halfpipe history
Chloe Kim returned to competition last season for the first time since repeating as Olympic gold medalist in 2022. In her second competition back, she became the first woman to land a 1260 in a contest.
This January, Kim break her tie with Kelly Clark for the most X Games titles in the event (both have seven total and six in Aspen). Come 2026, Kim likely won’t be the only American bidding to become the first woman to win three Olympic snowboarding golds.
Lindsey Jacobellis, who won two golds in 2022, won world championships silver in 2023 at age 37. Jamie Anderson, who won slopestyle gold in 2014 and 2018, returned to competition this past winter after March 2023 childbirth.
Speed Skating: Jordan Stolz rules
Jordan Stolz is coming off one of the all-time seasons in any winter sport. In 2023-24, the Wisconsinite broke his first world record (1000m), skated a fastest time in history at sea level (1500m), swept the 500m, 1000m and 1500m at the world championships for a second consecutive year and claimed the sport’s most storied title — world allround champion. All at age 19.
This season, Stolz has the chance to skate at a home World Cup in Milwaukee for the first time (Jan. 31-Feb. 2). The world championships are in March at the famed Viking Ship in Hamar, Norway.
Erin Jackson returned to the top of the World Cup 500m standings last season, one year after dealing with three herniated discs in her lower back. In 2022, Jackson became the first Black woman to win a Winter Olympic gold medal in an individual event.