This year marks the once every four year tradition of the Winter Olympic games. This year, the games took place from February 6th, to February 22nd, 2026 in Milan Cortina, Italy. I watched the Olympics this year and after viewing numerous different events, I have decided the top five I would recommend to people who are unsure of what to watch.Â
- Individual Speed Skating
For anyone unfamiliar with this event, speed skating is essentially a sprint race but on ice skates. Races can be as short as 500 meters (1640 feet) and as long as 10,000 meters (32808 feet). Before this year’s Olympics, I had never watched speed skating. When I watched it this year, I was surprised by how engaging it was. While I found the longer length races to be slightly repetitive, the shorter races proved to be very entertaining. For anyone who likes watching speed-based or race events in the Olympics, especially the track events in the summer Olympics, I would highly recommend watching speed skating.Overall, I’d rate this event a 7.5/10 because it can become tedious to watch for extended periods of time.
- Alpine Skiing
Alpine skiing is a very dynamic event. For anyone who isn’t familiar with it, there are five different types of alpine skiing in the Olympics: Downhill (skiing down a course), Slalom (skiing between poles down a course), Giant Slalom (skiing down a course between poles that are spaced slightly further apart than on slalom courses), Super-G (skiing between poles on a faster and more technical course), and Team Combined (A race in which two competitors for the same team race in downhill and slalom separately). Athletes competing in each type of alpine skiing ultimately have the same goal: get to the bottom of the course as fast as possible. I found this event to be very exciting to watch because the athletes ski at incredibly fast speeds (75-90 mph) and make tight turns as they go down the course. I would recommend this event to anyone who enjoys skiing or watching ski races. Despite how fun this event is to watch, it can also become tedious over time, similarly to speed skating. Overall, I’d rate alpine skiing an 8/10.
- Biathlon
This event is, as the name suggests, a combination of two different sports. Athletes competing in biathlon cross country ski around a track of varying length either individually or with teammates for a relay race. At various points around the track, there are stations where athletes must shoot small targets. This is also a time-based event, so those competing in biathlon must carefully strategize how to take enough time to make accurate shots, while not taking too long. Though this event sounds complicated, I found it to be incredibly interesting to watch. However, races can be a bit hard to keep track as all the competitors are always in different stages and have different challenges to overcome in order to win. Overall, I would rate this event an 8.5/10.
2: Hockey
I may be a bit biased with my rating of hockey since I was a hockey fan and player before watching it in the Olympics. However, I found watching Olympic hockey to be very fun as it is a fast paced and exciting sport to watch. Additionally, many of the events I watched were mostly individual or small team events, so it was nice to watch a large team sport. However, as an NHL fan, I found it hard to figure out which team to root for since there are players that I liked on several teams. I would rate this event a 9/10.Â
1: Ice Dancing
My personal favorite event of the Olympics this year was ice dancing. This is a figure skating event in which teams create a dance routine on ice. This is a pairs event in which skaters compete with opposite gender partners. This event is less technical than regular Olympic figure skating, and is scored slightly differently. Though there is less technicality in this event, I still found it to be incredibly fun to watch and very impressive. Despite how much I enjoyed watching this event, I found myself confused at times because the way it is scored is not very intuitive. I would rate this event a 9.5/10.
