Olympics.com Podcast

Four years ago, Shane Pitter didn't know what bobsleigh was. An athletics teammate told him, "It's a thing where you get in a tiny little box and you push it down the ice."
At Milano Cortina 2026, Pitter pilots not one but two Jamaican bobsleighs, while compatriot Mica Moore competes in the women's monobob. It marks a continuation of a fairy tale program for the Caribbean nation, with echoes of the 1990s cult classic movie, "Cool Runnings."
"That movie inspires me," said Pitter, who is a spearfisherman back at home in Jamaica when he's not training on the icy track in Lake Placid, New York. "And it inspires me to do better at these Games."
Jamaica's best-ever finish at an Olympics is 14th. Can they go better? "We want to make history," Pitter said.
Listen to their respective stories, as told to Olympics.com team members Andy Elliott and Sinead Nelson. Plus, host Nick McCarvel checks in on some of the other feel-good stories from the first few days of the Games, gives an update on Lindsey Vonn, and explains just why tennis great Novak Djokovic couldn't believe what he was seeing on a visit to figure skating.

Four years after facing immense pressure at a home Games at Beijing 2022, Eileen Gu is evolved - and ready to tackle what she calls "my first second Olympics."
The freestyle skiing superstar sat down exclusively with Olympics.com ahead of her competing at Milano Cortina 2026, where she is looking for a clean sweep of golds after winning a pair of them four years ago: "There's no burden," she explained. "There is nothing to defend, right, like, 'Defending gold medalist?' No, I'm here to compete - just like everyone else."
Olympics.com reporter Andrew Binner joins host Nick McCarvel to discuss his Gu chat, and gives an update from snowy Livignio, where both freeski and snowboard are taking place. Binner also gives further insight on the status of snowboarding great, the three-time Canadian medallist Mark McMorris, after a scary crash.
Plus, Nick meets Olympic fans from around the world at the Opening Ceremony, and we give you a taste of one of the Olympics.com athlete meet and greet livestreams, the first of which featured 2014 Olympic team bronze medallist in figure skating, Gracie Gold.

"I've always gotten back up," Lindsey Vonn told reporters on the eve of the Winter Olympics at Milano Cortina 2026. The skiing legend is battling another injury - a torn ACL - following a crash last week in Switzerland, but remains determined to race in what would be her fifth career Games.
"I will do everything in my power to be in that starting gate," she said.
Vonn is the focus of our first official podcast from MiCo 2026, with competition underway - and the iconic Opening Ceremony set for Friday, 6 February. Olympics.com podcast host Nick McCarvel is joined by colleague Alessandro Poggi from Cortina to get further insight on Vonn's injury and the challenges it presents - while also taking a vibe check on the Italian mountain town, which is hosting women's Alpine skiing, curling and the sliding sports - bobsleigh, skeleton and luge.

We're officially just days away from kicking off the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026, with competition set to get underway on 4 February - and the Opening Ceremony scheduled for the 6th.
With that in mind, host Nick McCarvel is joined by fellow Olympics.com reporter ZK Goh to talk about some of the big must-know storylines ahead of the Games, including "Quad God" figure skating star Ilia Malinin, the comeback of Lindsey Vonn, the USA-Canada women's hockey rivalry, cross-country skiing great Johannes Klaebo and much, much more.
Nick also gets audio dispatches from a handful of his other Olympics.com colleagues on the story they're most excited for - from ski jumping to Brazilian skeleton to the NHL's return to the Games and beyond.
Plus, three-time Olympic snowboard champion Shaun White describes why, exactly, the Olympics are just so extraordinary for the athletes themselves in a blurb from his exclusive interview with reporter Annie Fast.

There might be no story more awe-inspiring at Milano Cortina 2026 than that of Deanna Stellato-Dudek, a 42-year-old figure skater who left the sport for 16 years - only to return, and then win a world title.
The Chicago native, who now competes for Canada, is the subject of a new Olympic Channel documentary called Deanna's Dream, which is available to stream for free now on Olympics.com.
"This story is way bigger than me," Stellato tells host Nick McCarvel in the latest episode of the podcast, which dives deep into Deanna's journey and the documentary surrounding it. "It's about all women at any age of life who feel like they want to change something and make something more of themselves."
"I always think that my age provides me with a power," she adds, before laughing: "The only thing is that I have to put more work than my 20-year-old counterparts into just showing up the next morning."
Stellato-Dudek and partner Maxime Deschamps are competing this week (9-11 January) at the Canadian Championships, where the duo is aiming for a fourth consecutive national title - and a berth to the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026.
You can stream Deanna's Dream on Olympics.com now - for free.