The Winter Games have begun in Italy. From the rink to the slopes, a new generation of stars has emerged to chase gold. We’ll keep you connected to all of the thrilling moments and top stories as we track the medal race each day of the Games.
The U.S. has an opportunity for several gold medals on Day 4 of the 2026 Winter Olympics. The mixed doubles curling team could earn gold for the first time, while Breezy Johnson seeks the top of the medal stand in Cortina again. Alex Hall is also chasing Olympic glory for the second consecutive time. The “Quad God” might be officially coronated on the ice rink in men’s figure skating. And it’s always a good time when the USA and Canada face off in hockey.
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Here are the top five things to Tuesday at the 2026 Milan Cortina Olympics:
1. Team USA goes for gold in mixed doubles curling
The curling duo of Cory Thiesse and Korey Dropkin already made history by becoming the first U.S. mixed doubles team to advance to the medal round since the competition joined the Winter Olympics in 2018. But they didn’t merely settle for finishing among the tournament’s top four teams.
After losing to defending gold medalist Italy 7-6 in their earlier match on Monday to close out the round-robin session, Team USA had to face the home team again in the semifinals. Team Italy looked as if it might sweep the U.S. after taking a 2-0 lead, then going up 4-2 after the third end. The Americans gained the advantage with a 3-0 fourth end. But the match came down to the eighth end and Thiesse hit the perfect throw for two points and the win.
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Team USA will face reigning bronze medalist Sweden for the gold medal. Thiesse and Dropkin previously defeated Isabella and Rasmus Wranaa to get to the medal round. Can they get one more victory to win gold?
U.S. sensation Ilia Malinin surprisingly finished second to Japan’s Yuma Kagiyama in the men’s short program of the team figure skating competition Sunday. But the “Quad God” landed a backflip and quad flip in the free skate to help lift Team USA to a gold medal.
Can Malinin bring even more spectacle and style to the singles competition? Skating in his first Winter Olympics, he’s been viewed as the favorite for the event going into the Milan Cortina Games — arguably the United States’ best contender for a gold medal. However, Kagiyama has shown he’s a more than capable challenger. Their next showdown will begin with the men’s singles short program.
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3. USA and Canada clash in women’s ice hockey
The U.S. women’s ice hockey team has been dominant in group play, defeating Czechia, Finland and Switzerland by a combined score of 15-1. Goaltenders Aerin Frankel and Gwyneth Philips have been excellent for the U.S, while Alex Carpenter is tied for the tournament lead with five points (3 goals, 2 assists) and four teammates each have 4 points.
But in the next matchup, Team USA will face its top rival in Canada. The two countries have combined to win gold in every Olympics or World Championships. Playing one fewer game thus far (the Canadians will face Finland on Thursday), Team Canada has been equally formidable, beating Switzerland and Czechia by a total 9-1 score.
4. More Olympic struggles for Mikaela Shiffrin
Alpine skier Breezy Johnson became just the second U.S. woman to win a gold medal in the women’s downhill on Sunday. She had an opportunity for one more on Monday, competing in the team combined downhill event that debuted in the 2026 Winter Games with Mikaela Shiffrin as her partner.
MILAN — Three years ago, the greatest speedskater in American history made a rare appearance at the Olympic Oval in Salt Lake City.
Eric Heiden was curious to see the 18-year-old phenom who had already laid waste to the world junior record book and was by then beginning to snap at the heels of the fastest speedskaters on the international circuit.
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To Heiden, watching Jordan Stolz was like witnessing a younger, blonder version of himself. It wasn’t just the teenager’s power and efficiency in the straightaways, his ability to maintain speed in the curves or his unflappable demeanor under pressure. Their life stories also unfolded astonishingly similarly.
They both grew up in idyllic small towns in Wisconsin. They both learned to skate on frozen ponds. They both debuted on the Olympic stage at age 17 but were too young and green to contend for medals. They both came back stronger and more determined and ascended to the top of their sport during the following Olympic cycle.
“It’s a little freaky how similar our histories are,” Heiden, now a 67-year-old orthopedic surgeon in Park City, Utah, told Yahoo Sports. “Every time I think about it, I’m like dang, man, this guy is the same as I was.”
For Stolz to live up to the label of the next Heiden, he’ll need to seize his moment in the Olympic spotlight the same way Heiden did 46 years ago.
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Heiden won a mind-blowing five gold medals in Lake Placid, showcasing unparalleled range by sweeping every men’s speedskating race from the explosive 500 meters to the draining 25-lap 10,000 meters. To this day, no other Winter Olympian has claimed that many gold medals in a single Games. Only three other athletes have even won four gold medals at the same Winter Olympics.
Stolz, now 21, did not attempt to qualify for the long-distance races in Milan, but he’s a legitimate threat to return home with gold medals in the men’s 500, 1,000 and 1,500 as well as the chaotic and unpredictable mass start event. He has dominated the World Cup circuit this year, winning 16 out of 24 races that he has entered, with all of the non-victories coming in the 500 or the mass start. Those two events are the most volatile and feature the toughest competition.
Last week, Stolz publicly set a goal of winning four medals
“I can’t say which colors they’re going to be,” he admitted with a smile.
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Stolz’s first chance to begin stacking medals comes Wednesday night in the men’s 1,000.
Is Stolz the best American speedskater since Heiden? Yes, said Heiden, without the slightest hesitation.
“He’s a once-in-a-generation athlete,” Heiden added. “There hasn’t been anybody better for decades.”
Jordan Stolz and his sister Hannah skate on their backyard pond in Wisconsin. (Photos courtesy of Jane Stolz)
The backyard pond
Over a quarter century ago, Dirk and Jane Stolz bought a plot of land about 45 miles outside of Milwaukee and had plans drawn up for a two-story house overlooking the forest and the prairie. They envisioned a place where their children could develop the same passion for the outdoors they both had.
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As kids, Jordan Stolz and his older sister Hannah were outside from dawn until after dark. They hiked. They biked. They caught bullfrogs. They fished in streams. They helped with the family’s deer and elk farm. When Jordan and Hannah were old enough, their parents would take them to the Alaskan wilderness every summer to hunt moose, and fish for salmon and halibut.
The Stolzes didn’t permit their kids to watch much TV. Except when the 2010 Winter Olympics began. Dirk, a youth ski racer in Germany before emigrating to the U.S., declared to his family, “OK, for the next two weeks we’re watching this.”
The most frequently repeated portion of Jordan Stolz’s origin story is that he and his sister fell in love with speedskating while watching charismatic short-track star Apolo Anton Ohno compete in Vancouver. In reality, Dirk also played a pivotal role.
While Dirk never had interest in team sports like baseball, football or basketball, he liked the idea of his kids pursuing a winter sport, especially one the whole family could do together. He also was aware of the rich history of the Milwaukee-based Pettit Center, the first indoor speed skating oval built in the U.S. and the place where decorated Olympians like Bonnie Blair, Dan Jansen and Shani Davis trained.
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So when 5-year-old Jordan and 7-year-old Hannah were wowed by Ohno, Dirk seized his chance and gestured toward the three-acre-wide frozen pond in their backyard.
“You guys want to go out on the pond and skate?” he asked. “We can make a short track.”
Days later, after their dad shoveled off part of the pond and bought two pairs of cheap hockey skates, Jordan and Hannah stumbled out onto the ice. They both wore life vests because Jane was deathly afraid of the ice cracking beneath their feet.
That humble start soon gave way to bigger things as Jordan and Hannah grew more and more obsessed with speedskating. Eventually, Dirk plowed an oval into the track so his kids could do laps and set up a light system so that Jordan could safely skate past dark.
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Late one night, Jane shined a flashlight out in the backyard and found Jordan doing laps by himself. He was practicing his crossover technique to generate speed in the turns.
“You still out there?” Jane shouted.
“Just a little bit longer,” Jordan replied.
That’s when Jane began to realize how driven her son was.
Says Jane now with a laugh, “Even then, he was just different.”
When Bob Fenn died, Jordan Stolz needed a coach to continue his ascent. Bob Corby came out of retirement to help take Stolz to a new level. (Douwe Bijlsma/BSR Agency/Getty Images)
(BSR Agency via Getty Images)
Becoming the next Eric Heiden
Before long, the pond became too small to contain Jordan’s ambitions. Dirk and Jane began taking him and Hannah to the Pettit Center to work year-round with youth coaches.
One morning, when Jordan was about 10, he and Hannah whined for the first time ever to their mom, “Do we have to go to practice today?”
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Jane responded as if the Cookie Monster had just turned down a plate of chocolate chip and oatmeal raisin.
“I was shocked,” Jane recalled. “I was like, ‘What?’”
Since the Stolzes had never needed to bribe or prod their kids to get them to practice before, Jane went to the Pettit Center to sit and watch. What she found was that her kids were standing around for so long that their feet were getting cold, that “there was a lot of talking, a lot of instructions and no skating.”
Hoping for some advice, Jane approached a prominent Milwaukee-based coach with a big heart and a booming voice. Bob Fenn was best known for developing Shani Davis into a two-time Olympic gold medalist and two-time world all-around champion but he also worked with many other world-class speedskaters.
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Fenn had previously seen Jordan and Hannah skate and had developed a rapport with them during their many trips to the Pettit Center. Rather than recommend a new youth coach to Jane, Fenn out of nowhere told her, “That’s it. I’m taking your kids!”
To Jane, that was the equivalent of Bill Belichick volunteering to coach a Pop-Warner team. As she says, “He didn’t train kids. He trained Olympians.”
The Stolzes agreed to let Fenn coach their kids, but Dirk and Jane agonized over what the price was going to be. Jane repeatedly asked Fenn after practices, “How much do you charge?” Finally, he told them he would accept $250 per month to coach both Jordan and Hannah, pennies on the dollar compared to what Dirk and Jane expected.
“We basically paid for his gas money, but he didn’t care,” Jane said. “He loved them. He was like, I’ve got another Eric and Beth Heiden.”
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Intense yet compassionate, Fenn pushed Jordan hard for three years and got more out of him than even he thought was possible. Jordan began winning prestigious races, leading his parents to homeschool him so that he had more flexibility to handle the time demands of practicing five or six times per week and traveling to far-flung events.
Then on Oct. 8, 2017, Fenn didn’t show up to the rink for a scheduled practice session. Later that day, the Stolz family learned the 73-year-old had passed away suddenly, the cause of death reportedly a heart attack.
Fenn’s death was very hard on both her children, Jane said. Hannah gradually retreated from speedskating, preferring to focus on her passion for raising exotic birds and doing taxidermy. Jordan also drifted. Shani Davis filled in for Fenn for a little while, but when he accepted an opportunity to coach junior skaters in China, Jordan was coachless again.
The Stolz family found an unlikely savior in Bob Corby, a close friend of Fenn who hadn’t been part of the speedskating world for more than two decades. Corby coached the U.S. Olympic speedskating team in 1984 but eventually stepped away from the sport to pursue a career in physical therapy.
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The retired coach and the young skating prospect had gotten to know each other before Fenn’s death when Jordan suffered a hip flexor and needed a physical therapist. Corby helped Stolz with his hip, watched him skate and instantly recognized his potential.
While Corby provided guidance and advice from time to time after Fenn died, Jordan needed more than that. He and his mom called Stolz and all but begged him to come out of retirement.
“Well, I could help out,” Corby said.
“We don’t need help,” Jane replied. “We need a full-time coach.”
Intrigued by the chance to work with a talent like Jordan, Corby gradually took on a bigger and bigger role. He brought an old-school mentality on the ice and off, introducing more hill running, weight lifting and dry-land imitations to improve both Jordan’s technique and strength.
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The weight training in particular helped Jordan evolve from a talented but scrawny kid into a powerhouse. By the time speedskating began to emerge from the COVID pandemic, Jordan didn’t just stand out among skaters his own age anymore. The teenager was ready to take on the fastest men in America.
Jordan Stolz won the 1500 at the 2023 World Championships. He also won the 500 and 1000 … when he was just 18. (Dean Mouhtaropoulos – International Skating Union/International Skating Union via Getty Images)
(Dean Mouhtaropoulos – International Skating Union via Getty Images)
Boy beats world
Shortly before he competed for the first time at the U.S. Speedskating Championships in March 2021, Jordan made a startling prediction.
“Mom, I can beat every one of these guys here,” the 16-year-old matter-of-factly told his mother.
Jane was skeptical until she discovered those weren’t just empty words from her son. Many of the top American speedskaters posted their heart rate data to the app Strava after completing road cycling workouts. Jordan had compared his own data to theirs after rides and realized that the numbers favored him.
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Proof of that arrived in the men’s 500 meters when Jordan outraced a field that included past Olympians and men nearly twice his age. Jordan’s national junior record time of 34.99 seconds was a breakthrough that trumpeted his arrival on the international scene and foreshadowed the dominance that was yet to come.
“Everyone just went nuts,” Jane said. “They were like, can you believe this? I was thinking to myself, ‘Well, he told me could.’”
The eye-opening performances from Stolz didn’t end there.
At 17, Stolz won both the men’s 500 and 1,000 at the U.S. Olympic Trials, qualifying him to participate in the Winter Games in both events.
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At 18, he swept the gold medals in the 500, 1,000 and 1,500 at world championships.
At 19, he did it again.
He might have repeated that feat a third time last year were it not for the one-two punch of pneumonia and strep throat. Even then, he still made the podium in his three signature events at world championships, claiming a silver medal and two bronzes.
While Jordan is already a superstar in the speedskating-obsessed Netherlands and elsewhere in Europe, he remains largely anonymous in his home country. Outside of perhaps the Pettit Center, he can go virtually anywhere without being recognized.
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The chance for Jordan to change that begins Wednesday when he returns to the Olympic stage. NBC has promoted him as one of the faces of these Games. His image is splashed on all sorts of signs and billboards.
It’s a monumental opportunity, not that Jordan seems fazed.
“I try not to think about it too much,” he said. “Once you get to the line, it’s the same thing you’ve been doing for years. Everything else around you is just noise.”
Heiden plans to be in Milan to watch Jordan and support him. He has no doubt the young American will handle the pressure well.
What Heiden can’t help but wonder is whether Jordan has more in him. Could he someday enter all five men’s speedskating races at an Olympics, from the 500 to the 10,000? Does he have the rare combination of sprinting speed, power and endurance to match what Heiden once did?
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“I think he could be very competitive at all five distances,” Heiden said. “I’m just not sure he could be competitive across the board at the same moment.”
Heiden acknowledged the competition is a lot stronger than it was in his day and there are way more athletes who now specialize in a single distance.
“To be good at the 5,000 and 10,000 may mean that he’s going to lose some of his speed at the shorter distances,” Heiden said. “It would be a lot to ask, but we do not know what Jordan’s true abilities are yet. The sky’s the limit with this guy.”
Stephen Curry won’t play in Sunday’s NBA All-Star Game. Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr told reporters Monday night that Curry will miss Sunday’s game due to a lingering knee injury.
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Curry was selected as an All-Star starter and chosen to play alongside LeBron James and Kevin Durant on one of three All-Star teams as part of the league’s new USA-vs.-World All-Star tournament format. Curry’s status opens up a roster spot for another player to be named an All-Star. That player will presumably be named by the league.
Curry will also miss upcoming Warriors games against the Memphis Grizzlies and San Antonio Spurs. He’s already missed three games with the injury that the Warriors have been calling “runner’s knee.” Per the National Institutes of Health, runner’s knee consists of pain around the kneecap and can be triggered by exposure “to too much or too frequent strain.”
The Warriors did not provide a timeline for Curry to return beyond his absence through the All-Star break. Kerr announced the news ahead of Monday’s game against the Grizzlies. Golden State beat the Grizzles 114-113 to improve to 29-25, good for eighth place in the West.
Stephen Curry will be sidelined through the All-Star break at a minimum.
(Thearon W. Henderson via Getty Images)
Jimmy Butler has surgery
The Warriors are already playing the rest of this season and likely beyond without All-Star forward Jimmy Butler, who suffered a torn ACL on Jan. 19. The Warriors announced earlier Monday that Butler had surgery to repair the ACL tear. He’s expected to “make a full recovery,” according to a team statement.
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With Butler sidelined, the Warriors were reportedly targeting two-time Milwaukee Bucks MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo in an effort to team Curry up with another star to compete for a championship on the back end of his prime. But Antetokounmpo stayed put, and the Warriors instead acquired oft-injured center Kristaps Porziņģis from the Hawks in a trade that sent Jonathan Kuminga to Atlanta.
Porziņģis has been sidelined since Jan. 7 with an Achilles tendon injury and illness. Kerr announced on Saturday that Porziņģis will also be out through the All-Star break amid hope that he’ll be ready to make his Warriors debut after the break.
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For multiple decades, Bob Knight led Indiana University’s men’s basketball team to unparalleled success. Knight won three national championships, one NIT title and 11 Big Ten Conference titles over his 29 seasons as the team’s head coach.
As acknowledgement of Knight’s excellence, Indiana University announced Monday it will build a bronze statue of Knight as a way to immortalize his accomplishments.
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The statue of Knight will be displayed at Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall, where Indiana’s men’s and women’s basketball teams play their home games. Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall opened in 1971, Knight’s first year coaching Indiana, and already houses statues honoring the 1976 national championship team. Knight’s statue will “be displayed prominently alongside” those statues, per a school release.
That 1976 national championship team was special, as Knight led it to a perfect 32-0 record during the 1975-76 season. That team remains the last Division I men’s college basketball team to turn in an undefeated season.
During his 29-year run at Indiana, Knight put up a 662–239 record. That, combined with his national championships, led to Knight being inducted into the College Basketball Hall of Fame in 2006.
Knight’s time as Indiana’s head coach ended in controversy, as he was fired shortly after being accused of choking one of his former players. After that story emerged, then-Indiana University president Myles Brand put Knight on a “zero-tolerance” policy. After multiple complaints about Knight’s conduct, Brand fired Knight in 2000. Indiana students were outraged, marching in protest following the firing. Knight took a year off from coaching before heading to Texas Tech, where he spent his final seven seasons as a head coach. Knight put up a 138-82 record with Texas Tech before retiring in 2008.
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For many years following his firing, Knight held a grudge against Indiana. That fence was finally mended in 2020, when Knight attended his first game at the school since his firing in 2000. His presence was met with a rousing ovation.
Indiana University did not reveal a timetable for Knight’s statue, but promised to release more information on the project — which is being designed by Hanlon Studios — in the coming months. The project is being fully funded thanks to an anonymous men’s basketball supporter, the school said.
Given Team USA’s history, Ben Ogden entered the cross-country sprint Tuesday with extremely low expectations. Cross-country skiing hasn’t been Team USA’s best event, with Bill Koch being the only male to medal in the sport at the Olympics for the U.S.
But Koch got some company Tuesday, as Ogden pulled off a silver-medal finish in the cross-country sprint. Ogden finished the event with a time of 3:40.61. He finished just behind Norwegian legend Johannes Hosflot Klaebo, who won his second gold medal at the Milan Cortina Olympics and his seventh Olympic gold medal overall. Klaebo posted a winning time of 3:39.74 in the event.
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While Ogden didn’t take home the gold, it was a historic medal for the 25-year-old. With the performance, Ogden became just the second U.S. male to earn a medal in cross country. It was Team USA’s first medal by a male cross-country skier since 1976.
Cross-country skiing has a lengthy history at the Winter Olympics, and Team USA hasn’t made a big impact in the sport. Since cross-country skiing was introduced at the Olympics in 1924, Team USA had combined to medal just four times prior to Tuesday. Team USA’s women had accounted for three of those medals, with Koch being the only male U.S. athlete to medal in the sport.
Prior to Ogden’s silver, here is the brief history of Team USA’s cross-country performance at the Olympics:
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Bill Koch, silver medal, 1976 men’s 30k
Jesse Diggins and Kikkan Randall, gold medal, 2018 team sprint
Jesse Diggins, silver medal, 2022 women’s 20 and 30 km
While the U.S. has struggled in the sport, it appears the country’s luck is starting to turn. Ogden’s win gives Team USA four cross-country medals since the 2018 Olympics in Pyeongchang. After a century of struggles, the Americans are starting to find their footing in the sport.
Given that, perhaps Ogden’s silver medal Tuesday should have been expected. Ogden turned in a modest 12th-place finish in the freestyle sprint at the 2022 Olympics. While he didn’t come close to the podium, that performance did mark the best sprint finish by a U.S. man in the Olympics at that point.
Ogden obviously smashed that performance Tuesday. In doing so, he not only won his first Olympic medal, but accomplished something Team USA hasn’t experienced in 50 years.
DirecTV’s Entertainment tier gets you access to loads of channels where you can tune in to college and pro sports, the Winter Olympics, and more. Channels include ESPN, TNT, ACC Network, Big Ten Network, CBS Sports Network, and, depending on where you live, local affiliates for ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC.
Whichever package you choose, you’ll get unlimited Cloud DVR storage and access to ESPN+’s new streaming tier, ESPN Unlimited.
DirecTV’s Entertainment tier package is $49.99 for your first month. But you can currently try all this out for free for 5 days. If you’re interested in trying out a live-TV streaming service for football season but aren’t ready to commit, we recommend starting with DirecTV.
Despite not adding to their medal count, Team USA had a productive day at the 2026 Milan Cortina Olympics on Monday. Madison Chock and Evan Bates put themselves in strong position to medal after an impressive rhythm dance performance, the U.S. women’s hockey team continued to dominate the competition in the preliminary round and Team USA’s mixed doubles curling team advanced to the gold-medal match.
Thanks to that mixed doubles curling team, the U.S. is guaranteed to add to its medal count Tuesday. A win over Sweden nets the gold, but a loss sends Cory Thiesse and Korey Dropkin home with silver medals.
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Elsewhere, the “Quad God,” Ilia Malinin, will take the ice Tuesday for the men’s short program. Malinin’s performance in the team portion of the men’s short Saturday was shaky, as he actually finished behind Japan’s Yuma Kagiyama in the event. Malinin already shook off the rust from that performance, propelling Team USA to the gold medal in the team event after an exceptional free skate Sunday. Tuesday, however, will give Malinin a chance to fully bounce back in the men’s short.
To close out the day, women’s luge and mixed team ski jumping will get underway before the U.S. women’s hockey team squares off against Canada. It will be Team USA’s biggest test yet, as Canada is the only other undefeated team left in Group A.
But before all that happens, there were a number of early morning events Tuesday.
Here are the top stories of the day so far:
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1. Mikaela Shiffrin experiences heartbreak again, but Jackie Wiles and Paula Moltzan take bronze for Team USA in combined ski
Breezy Johnson proved Sunday that she is a threat in the downhill. Johnson picked up one of Team USA’s two gold medals at the 2026 Olympics — so far — in the event, beating Emma Aicher of Germany by just just four-hundredths of a second.
On Tuesday, Johnson proved that performance wasn’t a fluke. She cruised to the lead in the downhill during the team event, finishing with a 1:36.59 time. That was enough to propel Team USA into the lead.
With Johnson’s portion out of the way, it was up to Mikaela Shiffrin, a slalom great, to deliver the gold medal. But after failing to medal in the 2022 Beijing Olympics, Shiffrin missed out on the podium again.
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Appearing hesitant on the course, with rounder turns than normal, Shiffrin’s time in the slalom was just the 15th fastest of the day, and it dropped her and Johnson to fourth place in the event. They clocked out more than three-tenths of a second behind gold medalists Ariane Raedler and Katharina Huber of Austria. Fortunately for Team USA, though, Jackie Wiles and Paula Moltzan grabbed bronze. Moltzan followed up Wiles in the downhill with a clean run in the slalom.
2. Italy takes gold in speed skating mixed relay, Team USA falters
The host country scooped up its second gold at the 2026 Milan Cortina Olympics, upsetting Canada in the short track speed skating mixed team relay.
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It was a narrow victory for Italy, which posted a time of 2:39.019. Canada finished just behind with a time of 2:39.258, and Belgium wasn’t far behind them, taking bronze. For Belgium, that marked the first medal the country has earned so far at the 2026 Olympics.
With the win, Italian speed skater Arianna Fontana made history, becoming the first woman to medal at six consecutive Winter Olympics. Fontana now has three golds, four silvers and five bronzes since the 2018 Olympics in Pyeongchang.
Team USA failed to reach the final. Though the team recovered from a Corinne Stoddard fall to advance in the quarterfinal, it could not overcome another fall from Stoddard in the semifinal.
3. Sweden dominates cross-country women’s sprint
Move over, Jonna Sundling, because Sweden has a new cross-country gold medalist. Swedish skier Linn Svahn took home the gold in the cross-country women’s sprint Tuesday, finishing with a time of 4:03.05. Svahn finished just ahead of Sundling, who took the silver medal with a time of 4:04.64. Sundling won the gold medal in the event during the 2022 Olympics in Beijing. Finishing in third … was another Swede. Maja Dahlqvist put up a time of 4:07.88, giving Sweden a clean sweep of the medals at the event.
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American Julia Kern finished in sixth place, posting a time of 4:43.41.
4. Ben Ogden takes silver in cross-country men’s sprint
Ben Ogden didn’t win the gold medal in the cross-country men’s sprint Tuesday, but he did pull off something that hasn’t been done by Team USA in the sport in half a century. With a silver medal, Ogden became the first American man in 50 years to earn an Olympic medal in a cross-country skiing event. The last individual to pull off the feat was Bill Koch, who won the silver back in 1976. Ogden finished behind a legend. Norwegian Johannes Hoesflot won the event, giving him his second medal of the Milan Cortina games and his ninth Olympic medal overall. Of those nine medals, seven have been gold.
5. Alex Hall’s gold-medal defense falls short in slopestyle
Alex Hall won gold in freeski men’s slopestyle four years ago in Beijing, and Americans had won six of the nine total medals in the event since it was added to the Olympic program in 2018. This time around, though, Hall was the only member of Team USA to make the podium, and he was dethroned in the process. Norway’s Birk Ruud, who came into the Games as the world’s top-ranked slopestyle freeskier, took gold, whereas Hall’s impressive second run helped him secure a silver medal. As for his fellow Americans, however, Konnor Ralph finished ninth in his Olympic debut and Mac Forehand, a medal hopeful, struggled to navigate rails and placed 11th.
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Highlight of the morning
Stevenson Savart is Haiti’s first-ever Olympic cross-country skier. The 25-year-old was the country’s flag bearer at the Opening Ceremony. While he didn’t medal, he made national history and wrapped up his groundbreaking run in this year’s Games to the tune of cheers.
If you’re no stranger to fantasy sports, you’re likely coming off a successful (or unsuccessful) fantasy football season. Perhaps you also play fantasy basketball or fantasy hockey and are enduring the rigors of those seasons. If all of the above apply and you’re ready for your next challenge, or you’ve just been anxiously awaiting fantasy baseball, we’ve got some good news.
Yahoo Fantasy baseball returns in 2026 with new features designed to help fans optimize their lineups, commissioners manage their leagues and the entire Yahoo Fantasy baseball community stay better connected.
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New features
A new team screen calendar view gives fans a single weekly scan of their team, enabling them to see which day of the week their pitchers are scheduled to start. Launching early this season, this feature will help fans more easily spot gaps in their lineups and plan for the week ahead.
An updated draft settings tool enables league commissioners to manage draft times and formats, as well as set draft orders, directly from the Yahoo Fantasy app.
Fantasy Feed — which launched for the football season — will be available for the baseball campaign. Fantasy Feeds enable fans to follow, react to and talk with other fans about every big play from the games that matter most to their fantasy season.
Matchup of the Week — which also launched in the fall — highlights one must-watch league showdown every week. Fans who win the Matchup of the Week earn a custom badge to flex on their leaguemates.
Ever had a few friends who wanted to play but not enough to fill a fantasy baseball league? You can instantly invite up to seven people to join you in a free public league. All you have to do is enter a free public draft room and tap the “Add Friends Pre-Draft” button to invite people to join your draft! (This feature is currently only for public leagues.)
Want to lessen the load of having to meticulously set your fantasy baseball lineup, day in and day out? With the tap of a button on desktop or from the Yahoo Fantasy app, the free Start Active Players feature will set your lineup for you, filling it with healthy players who have a game on that specific day/week and benching those who are off and/or injured.
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If you’re ready to take your game to the next level, you can get something even better …
Yahoo Fantasy+ premium features help you win from draft day to the playoffs. Subscribers win their leagues 81%‡ more often and will also now have access to a trio of popular features that were available for football season, including:
Instant Mock Draft: Practice your draft in seconds. Test different strategies, positions and roster constructions as many times as you want, anytime, instantly.
Draft Kits: A personalized cheat sheet with rankings, tiers and projections tailored specifically to your league. Additionally, player insights surface real-time expert analysis directly in those cheat sheets. Exclusively in the Yahoo Fantasy app.
Assistant GM: A virtual assistant that starts your best players and alerts you if you need to make a move before the action starts.
‡ Based on 2024 Yahoo Fantasy Sports LLC data.
Now’s your chance to gain an edge — unlock premium draft tools, player projections and more with Yahoo Fantasy Plus.
Make the most of this fantasy baseball season
If you’ve played fantasy sports before, great — welcome back! If you’re new to fantasy baseball, we’ve got a very useful and informative Fantasy Baseball 101 that will give you everything you need to know before playing.
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Pumped to get your team? Drafts are open now or you can practice with mock drafts to get ready for the real thing. Yahoo Fantasy analysts are also ready to help you win your league, kicking off draft prep season with our top-250 rankings so you can start mapping out which players to target. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to our fantasy baseball content.
We will be delivering all kinds of advice leading up to the season, including positional previews, draft strategies, breakouts, sleepers, players to fade, bold predictions and much more from top-notch analysts, including Scott Pianowski, Fred Zinkie and Corbin Young.
Once drafts are in the books and the first pitch is thrown on Opening Day, our analysts will be with you all season long with waiver wire targets, trades to pull off, lineup tips and more. And for personalized advice, Yahoo Fantasy+ offers a wealth of in-season tools — and several other membership perks — to give you an extra edge when it comes to roster moves. All of this will help you stay ahead of your leaguemates on your quest to take home a fantasy baseball championship!
Note: The default scoring in all newly created fantasy baseball leagues will be head-to-head points. This is the standard across all new leagues, but private-league commissioners can change their scoring settings if they so choose, while those in public leagues will also have head-to-head category and rotisserie scoring as options as well.
Fantasy baseball remains a staple for MLB fans, matching the everyday excitement on the field that has truly become a worldwide phenomenon. If you love baseball, if you count down the days from the end of the World Series to when pitchers and catchers report, this is the game for you. You’ll get to build your team through the draft, targeting a mix of stars, solid starters, rookies and role players. Then ride the highs and lows of the baseball season, from Opening Day all the way to the final out as your squad goes for the title.
If you’ve never played fantasy baseball before and want to know more about how it works, don’t worry. We’ve put together this how-to guide that has all the information you need to play and win. See why this game within the game is so much fun.
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What is fantasy baseball?
When it comes down to it, fantasy baseball is a collection of players assembled on a team, and their accumulated real-life stats get converted into fantasy points. If you’re able to score more fantasy points or win more categories than your opponent, then you win that particular week’s matchup. If you’re playing weekly matchups and win enough times throughout the season, then you can secure a spot in the fantasy playoffs and potentially become a champion.
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Maybe you don’t get to celebrate like the World Series champions, with a parade through your city’s streets and thousands of fans cheering you on. But with a fantasy baseball championship comes the reward of getting to remind your league mates who the best is with some friendly trash talk during the offseason. You might even get a prize for winning it all, depending on your league style. Not too shabby, huh?
There are many different ways to play fantasy baseball, and it’s easy using Yahoo’s default settings. Or, you can customize the scoring settings to suit your league’s tastes. But one thing is the same: you, as the manager, must draft your team first (more on that below).
Trades could come into play, too. That’s when you and another manager in your league agree to swap players to suit your mutual needs for the rest of the season.
All this happens throughout the season as you operate as a de facto general manager. This regular dedication can mean starting the right player for a day or week (depending on whether you’re in a daily or weekly league format) to accumulate fantasy points and statistics that propel you to wins in weekly competitions against opponents.
Don’t feel that this game is being played on a computer. Enjoy watching the actual MLB games and look at how the scoring translates to fantasy as you follow your team’s progress on your personal device or through our very user-friendly Yahoo Fantasy app. You’ll see that your team compiles stats for home runs, runs, RBI, wins, saves and many other categories. As you get more experience, you’ll see how stars like Aaron Judge and Tarik Skubal help you across several categories, and thus are more valuable to your team.
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Some leagues play for more than just bragging rights. They can set a monetary reward for the champion or the top finishers in the league, staggered based on final placement. For private leagues, the commissioner works with league members to determine what’s at stake and how the end-of-season awards are distributed. Yahoo can even help with holding the funds and paying out the winners for Private Prize Leagues. Some leagues even agree upon a punishment for the last-place team, and those can range from funny to embarrassing to, well, both. So don’t finish last!
What if I don’t have enough people to play?
Don’t worry if you can’t get a group together to play fantasy baseball — there are options to play for free or for cash in public leagues on Yahoo. Want to keep it casual with no monetary stakes involved? Playing for the first time and want to give it a test drive? Join a free league and have some fun without all the pressure.
If you ever had a few friends who wanted to play but not enough to fill an entire league, our feature, Draft With Friends, is the perfect solution! You can instantly invite up to seven people to join you in a free public league. All you have to do is enter a free public draft room and tap the “Add Friends Pre-Draft” button to invite people to join your draft! (This feature is currently only for public leagues.)
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If you’re confident and want to up the ante, join a Public Prize League by paying an entry fee. This fee goes towards cash prize payouts for first, second and third place.
What are the different scoring formats in fantasy baseball?
Players on your fantasy team’s active roster put up stats in the categories tied to your league settings, and your format dictates your scoring. There are three formats in which people typically play fantasy baseball.
Try one format and see if there are any tweaks you’d like to make. Or change formats altogether. That’s what’s fun about fantasy baseball — there are different ways to play to suit what you enjoy the most. The main formats to play are:
This format is similar to fantasy football in that there are weekly matchups against opponents from your league.
In private leagues, you can increase or decrease the number of teams based on how many people you want to play in your league. It’s ideal to have an even number of teams for H2H leagues, but there’s an option to play with an odd number (as long as you have five or more teams).
Now let’s get more specific about the types of head-to-head scoring:
Categories or One win: Fantasy managers move players back and forth from their starting lineup to their bench on a daily basis, starting Monday and running through the final games Sunday, with teams compiling statistics in the same 10 categories in H2H Category and One Win leagues — five for batters and five for pitchers. Those categories are runs, home runs, RBI, stolen bases and batting average for batters. And wins, saves, strikeouts, earned run average and WHIP (walks/hits per inning pitched) for pitchers.
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H2H Categories is a cumulative style where your record is how many categories you’ve won and lost in a week and over the course of the season. The goal is to win at least six of the 10 categories by the end of each week. Note: you can also consider using more or fewer than 10 categories.
H2H One Win (Private Leagues only) is identical to H2H Categories, except only 1 result is added to the W-L-T record per week.
Head-to-Head Points and Head-to-Head Weekly Points: In these formats, there are point values assigned to every statistic in 17 separate categories; both the hitting and pitching point designations for each stat are listed below and account for scoring.
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Batter Stat Categories and Point Values
Pitcher Stat Categories and Point Values
These two options — one with daily roster management and the other with weekly, when players lock every Monday — are a combination of Points and the H2H formats above, in that each matchup, the teams compile points.
Ultimately, teams are assigned wins and losses each week, and the standings are kept for each league. A predetermined number of teams make the playoffs, which begin Week 24 and continue until one team is crowned champion at the completion of Week 26 and the MLB season.
Default scoring in all newly-created leagues will be Head-to-Head Points. This will be the standard across all new leagues, but private-league commissioners can change their scoring settings if they so choose, while those in public leagues will also have Head-to-Head Category and Rotisserie scoring as options as well.
In this format, similar to H2H Points, there are point values assigned to the 17 separate categories listed above and account for scoring. Points are added up to determine the standings — there are no playoffs in this format.
This is the original format that was founded in the 1980s. Active players’ stats are compiled for each fantasy squad, and then teams are ranked in each category based on their cumulative numbers, with the standings determined by how highly the players rank in all categories combined — there are no playoffs in this format. These are the 10 categories, divided evenly between pitching and hitting.
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Batter Stat Categories: Runs (R), Home Runs (HR), Runs Batted In (RBI), Stolen Bases (SB), Batting Average (AVG)
Pitcher Stat Categories: Wins (W), Saves (SV), Strikeouts (K), Earned Run Average (ERA), (Walks + Hits)/ Innings Pitched (WHIP)
So, if your team has the most home runs in a 10-team league, that would be worth 10 points. If your squad has the fewest homers, you would receive 1 point, and so on, for how you rank in each of the categories.
How do you draft a fantasy baseball team?
There are some dates on the calendar that you always circle in anticipation: Halloween, your Birthday, Opening Day of the MLB season and … Draft Day! That’s the day everyone in your league convenes to pick their respective teams. If you’re lucky to be near one another or get that many people in the same place at the same time, there are few things better than a live draft. If your league is scattered all over the country — or in some cases the world — Yahoo Fantasy has you covered. You can draft online from your computer, phone or personal device. For commissioners, we also have tips on getting your league ready to draft.
You can also practice by partaking in a mock draft to get ready for the real thing. It’s a valuable resource before going into a live setting because you want to get comfortable with the draft format (more on that below), plus get a feel for the board and where players are being selected. You can mock out of any draft position to see what type of team you can get after having the No. 1 pick, No. 2 pick and so on.
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If you’re looking for a baseline expectation or range of where certain players typically get drafted, Yahoo Fantasy’s draft analysis tool helps understand each player’s average draft position (ADP). Some players will go later, and others will go early, so mocking will provide a sense of the market value when it’s time to draft.
The Yahoo default positions for each team in a 10-team league are: a catcher (C), first baseman (1B), second baseman (2B), third baseman (3B), shortstop (SS), three outfielders (OF), two utility players (Util), two starting pitchers (SP), two relief pitchers (RP), four pitchers (P), five bench spots (BN) and four injured list spots (IL). Players are moved in and out of the starting lineup based on how managers want to deploy their teams, according to league rules determining daily or weekly transactions.
The most common way to select teams is through what’s called a snake draft. In a 10-team league, after the order is determined, teams start drafting from No. 1 through No. 10, and then in the second round start at 10 and count backward toward No. 1 again. Then repeat the process until all the teams have been selected. The default positions listed above go through 23 rounds, but that can be increased based on your league’s wishes.
If you’d like a more challenging way to draft, your league can elect to try a Salary Cap Draft, where all teams start with a predetermined budget, usually $260. Instead of going around and picking players, the managers in your league get to nominate players and assign them a salary as long as it’s within their remaining budget. While it would be impossible to roster Shohei Ohtani and Juan Soto on the same team in a snake draft format (both are among the consensus top-10 players, according to Yahoo Fantasy rankings), in a Salary Cap Draft, managers can load up on stars and leave a few dollars for less-productive players to fill out the rest of their roster. It takes longer to draft this way, but there is more strategy in managing a budget to fill out a roster.
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Fantasy baseball just got more fun and easier than ever
Yahoo Fantasy baseball returns in 2026 with new features designed to help fans optimize their lineups, commissioners manage their leagues and the entire Yahoo Fantasy baseball community stay better connected.
New features
A new team screen calendar view gives fans a single weekly scan of their team, enabling them to see which day of the week their pitchers are scheduled to start. Launching early this season, this feature will help fans more easily spot gaps in their lineups and plan for the week ahead.
An updated draft settings tool enables league commissioners to manage draft times and formats, as well as set draft orders, directly from the Yahoo Fantasy app.
Fantasy Feed — which launched for the football season — will be available for the baseball campaign. Fantasy Feeds enable fans to follow, react to and talk with other fans about every big play from the games that matter most to their fantasy season.
Matchup of the Week — which also launched in the fall — highlights one must-watch league showdown every week. Fans who win the Matchup of the Week earn a custom badge to flex on their leaguemates.
Want to lessen the load of having to meticulously set your fantasy baseball lineup, day in and day out? With the tap of a button on desktop or from the Yahoo Fantasy app, the free Start Active Players feature will set your lineup for you, filling it with healthy players who have a game on that specific day/week and benching those who are off and/or injured.
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If you’re ready to take your game to the next level, you can get something even better …
Yahoo Fantasy+ premium features help you win from draft day to the playoffs. Subscribers win their leagues 81%‡ more often and will also now have access to a trio of popular features that were available for football season, including:
Instant Mock Draft: Practice your draft in seconds. Test different strategies, positions and roster constructions as many times as you want, anytime, instantly.
Draft Kits: A personalized cheat sheet with rankings, tiers and projections tailored specifically to your league. Additionally, player insights surface real-time expert analysis directly in those cheat sheets. Exclusively in the Yahoo Fantasy app.
Assistant GM: A virtual assistant that starts your best players and alerts you if you need to make a move before the action starts.
‡ Based on 2024 Yahoo Fantasy Sports LLC data.
Yahoo Fantasy baseball just got more fun and easier than ever to play for the 2026 MLB season with several new features!
After your draft is complete, the fun begins! It’s time to start your quest to win that fantasy championship. There are going to be tough decisions on who to add off the waiver wire and who to drop. You may need to pull off a trade or two along the way. Our analysts will provide top-notch advice all season long to help your chances. And for personalized advice, Yahoo Fantasy+ offers a wealth of in-season tools to give you an extra edge when it comes to roster moves — on top of that, there are also several exclusive perks with our partners valued at more than $250 with your membership.
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While you’re hard at work, don’t forget to take some time to let your leaguemates know who’s the best. At the end of the day, it’s all about having fun (and winning). Good luck in your fantasy baseball leagues, and join or create a league today!
