Ski mountaineering is ready for its Olympic debut, starting with the men\u2019s and women\u2019s sprint events on Thursday. It does so in a mountain region rich with the sport\u2019s history.<\/p>\n
HOW IT WORKS<\/p>\n
Ski mountaineering, known as SkiMo, is a sport that combines ascending mountainous terrain and skiing back down. The condensed version, the sprint event, will feature at the Winter Games, lasting around three minutes per heat.<\/p>\n
With three rounds, from heats to final, and 36 athletes competing in total, each ski mountaineer must complete the race in three parts: an uphill trek on skis with \u201cskins\u201d underneath that grip the snow, a walk upstairs on foot with the skis stowed in a backpack, known as boot-packing, and finally a ski down to the finish line, which may include jumps or rolls built into the snow.<\/p>\n
With transitions between each stage being a key part of winning the competition, it becomes a race against the clock, as the first athlete across the finish line wins.<\/p>\n
There will also be a mixed relay with one man and one woman per team competing together to complete two rounds each on Saturday.<\/p>\n
LONG HISTORY, FAMILIAL TIES IN BORMIO<\/p>\n
Not only does SkiMo\u2019s history trace back hundreds of years to Alpine military training, it also has rich history specific to its Olympic host location.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s kind of where ski mountaineering racing came to life,\u201d Michela Martinelli, sport manager of ski mountaineering for Milano Cortina, said of the Alpine region surrounding Bormio, which boasts many successful SkiMo athletes and a leading ski manufacturer for the sport.<\/p>\n
SkiMo evolved largely in the 1980s when recreational races started to appear, with its first world championships held in 2002 in Serre Chevalier, France. In 2022, it was adopted into the Youth Olympic Games before being added for Milano Cortina.<\/p>\n
Two competing Italian athletes, Giulia Murada and Michele Boscacci, are from the surrounding region, and both have their fathers helping prepare the Olympic course.<\/p>\n
Their fathers, Ivan Murada and Graziano Boscacci, are decorated ski mountaineers. Together, they won the team race at the first world championships, playing a large part in Italy\u2019s success in the sport.<\/p>\n
WHO TO WATCH<\/p>\n
France\u2019s Emily Harrop will defend her world No. 1 ranking in the women\u2019s sprint from last year, while Spain\u2019s Oriol Cardona Coll will defend his own.<\/p>\n
They face tough competition from racers such as Switzerland\u2019s Marianne Fatton and Jon Kistler, and France\u2019s Thibault Anselmet, who won the most recent World Cup men\u2019s sprint race earlier in February in Spain.<\/p>\n
The French duo, Harrop and Anselmet, who won the mixed relay at the same event, will compete not only against Spain and Switzerland but also against married couple Michele Boscacci and Alba de Silvestro from Italy.<\/p>\n
Hopeful newcomers Anna Gibson and Cam Smith will represent the United States.<\/p>\n
Arthur Whitehead (USA) competes in an ISMF Ski Mountaineering World Cup sprint event at the Stelvio Alpine Skiing Centre in Bormio \u2014 the venue hosting SkiMo races at the 2026 Winter Olympics.<\/p>\n
Francesco Scaccianoce\/Getty Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ski mountaineering is ready for its Olympic debut, starting with the men\u2019s and women\u2019s sprint events on Thursday.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11783,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[16],"tags":[8812,50,8813,8814,8808,8806,8810,8809,8807,1202,8805,8811],"class_list":["post-11782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-alps","tag-alba-de-silvestro","tag-alps","tag-anna-gibson","tag-cam-smith","tag-emily-harrop","tag-giulia-murada","tag-jon-kistler","tag-marianne-fatton","tag-michele-boscacci","tag-news","tag-ski-mountaineering","tag-thibault-anselmet"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11782"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11782\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}