It was not until 2024 that it was finally decided to build a new track for the sliding sports in Cortina for the 2026 Olympic Winter Games replacing the venue of the 1956 Winter Olympics. At some point in time, it was even discussed to hold the competitions on an existing track outside of Italy. The construction of the new Cortina Sliding Centre Eugenio Monti was highly controversial due to the estimated costs of almost 120 million Euro. In November 2025, the first World Cup of the 2025/26 season took place on the track, and most athletes were impressed with the track after the test runs. The Olympic skeleton events were held here from 12–15 February 2026. Like in Beijing a total of 50 quota spots (25 per gender) were available with athletes from 23 NOCs competing. For the first time, a mixed team event was added to the previous men’s and women’s singles.
In Beijing 2022, Germany had sensationally taken both gold medals. In Cortina, it did not win any gold in skeleton but took all six silver and bronze medals. Two gold medals went to Great Britain as a traditional stronghold of the sport that left Beijing empty handed returned to the top of the table. Matt Weston dominated the men’s singles and took a second gold with Tabi Stoecker in the team event. The biggest surprise was Austria’s gold in the women’s singles by veteran Janine Flock, the country’s first ever Olympic medal in skeleton. But with these three countries taking all the medals, unlike in Beijing less traditional sliding nations like China could only achieve top six placings but did not medal.
The sporting decisions in skeleton were overshadowed by the disqualification of the Ukrainian athlete Vlad Heraskevych. He was banned by the International Olympic Committee from competing while wearing his “helmet of memory” showing Ukrainian Olympians who were victims of the ongoing Russian invasion that started in 2022 immediately after the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics.
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