The Winter Olympics
Thanks for joining us!
This episode was written by Kara and voiced by Kara and T.
Episode art was drawn by Jean.
It was originally released in February 2026.
— Check out these books about athletes & the Olympics —
Click on each photo for a link to the book on our Bookshop.org account
— Learn more about the Milano Cortina Olympics & athletes! —
The Olympics website has some fantastic short videos of sports explainers
Follow along with the Olympic Torch Relay
Learn more about the 2026 Olympic medals
Explore the beautiful areas of Italy that will host the games
Learn more about Ilia Malinin in this New York Times feature
— Olympic crafting! —
Make your own torch by wrapping a sturdy paper in tin foil. Add strips of tissue paper to look like fire and decorate!
Create an Olympic medal by wrapping cardboard in metallic paper, add a number and your own design! Don’t forget a ribbon so that you can wear it proudly around your neck, like a real Olympian.
— Download this coloring sheet —
Click on the photo to download a printable PDF of the Olympic rings
— For my fellow Millenial parents —
— Winter Olympics Episode Summary —
The ice sports of the Winter Olympic Games —
Because these are the winter games, the sports there take place in the cold! They’re on snowy mountains and cold ice rinks!
The ice sport include: figure skating, ice dancing, short track speed skating, speed skating, ice hockey, and curling.
Hockey is played with two teams in an ice rink, where they try to score goals all while skating fast on slippery ice.
Figure skating is when athletes dance, glide, and jump around an ice rink, while music plays and they’re wearing special costumes!
And speed skating is where people try to skate as fast as they can around an ice track!
The sport of curling takes place on the ice, and involves one person carefully pushing/sliding a weight and then the other person quickly brushing the ice in front of them to control where that weight goes!
Sports that take place on snow —
There are many different sports that take place on snow! Alpine skiing is done on really high mountains and there are several different kinds of races. But they all go super fast down steep mountains.
In Freestyle skiing the athletes jump off of bumps, and do flips in the air all while traveling on skis down a mountain.
Snowboarders do that too, but with two feet attached to one board instead of feet separated on skis.
Ski jumpers go straight down a ramp, fly off the end and see how far down the mountain they can fly until they land on the snow.
Cross country skiing is more like a race like we’d run, except on skiis in the snow! The biathlon combines that cross country racing skiing, AND it also has a part where you shoot a gun! And in Nordic combined, they do cross country skiing and ski jumping!!!
Winter sports that use sleds —
There are three kinds of sleds in Olympic sports, but they are not gently sledding down a snowy hill in the park. They are sliding down a track of hard, slippery ice, with turns and curves to see who can go the fastest.
Bobsleighs have seats for either, 1, 2, or 4 people. The pilot steers through the turns and the brakeperson slows and stops the sled.
A luge is a board on which a person lays on their back.
And the skeleton is a board on which the person lays on their stomach, face down.
When and where are these Olympic Games happening? —
It feels like not long ago that we actually talked about another Olympic Games – the Summer Olympics in Paris, France in 2024!
There are actually two types of Olympic Games: Summer and Winter. They trade years and seasons.
The Winter Olympics happen every 4 years. And the summer Olympics happen every 4 years. But not the same years! They trade, and they’re usually in the even numbered years. So our Winter Olympics are starting in 2026. The next ones are planned to be in 4 years, which would make it 2030.
The last summer one was 2 years ago, in 2024. The next summer one is planned to be in 4 years from THAT one.. which would be 4 years from 2024…. 2028! So can you see the pattern? Summer.. then 2 years later, winter… 2 years later, summer… 2 years later, winter!
The location always changes. The place where the games take place is called the “host”. Have you heard that word before, friends? Sometimes we use it when we have people over to our home, we’re “hosting” them!
The 2024 Summer Olympics were in the city of Paris, in the country of France, on the continent of Europe. This year’s 2026 Winter Olympics are in the areas of Milan and Cortina, in the country of Italy. The next summer Olympics in 2028 will be in Los Angeles, California, in the United States of America! That’s the country T and I live in! T would love to go!
Now the funny thing about this is that actually, some of the sports take place near the “host” city. Not every place can hold every sport. This year, there are sports happening around the city called Milano. (That is how it is called in Italian, and other people around the world call it Milan.) But other winter sports need mountains and large areas of snow so some of the events will be in an area of Italy with very high mountains, called Cortina d’Ampezzo.
The first host city of the first Olympics was Greece. They held the ancient olympic games is 776 BC!
The first international Olympic Games in modern history were the Summer Olympics, held in Athens Greece in 1896.
The first Winter Olympics was held quite a while later, in 1924. That’s just over 100 years ago from this year! They were in France and there were just five sports. I wonder which sports will be at the Olympics in 100 years from now!
Team/individual/pair sports & having men’s and women’s events —
Sports are so much fun! They’re a way of getting energy out, and they need a lot of energy! I think of a sport as a game we play with our bodies.
A game we play with our bodies. Most people play them for fun! And then a very few play sports as a job, they get paid to play!
There’s usually a purpose in sport, something you need to do to win. Like being the fastest. Or getting the most points. Or the least points! It depends on the game.
A person who does a sport is called an athlete. At the Milano Cortina Olympic Games there will be about 3,500 athletes competing.
When an athlete is playing a sport alongside other athletes, to see who’s the best, we call it competing.
A team sport has a group of athletes who all playing together. A bobsleigh team will all sit in the same little cart as it whirls down the ice track! A hockey team passes a puck between players as they try to score a goal!
There are many winter sports that are individual ones. Where one person is competing on their own. They’re trying to be the best of everyone beside them in that sport, even people from their own country!
And there are a few sports where it’s done in pairs, which is two people. One of the cool things about pairs’ sports is that they can be events where men and women work together!
Some ice skating is like this - there’s a couple who skate together to do their sport. In curling, there are two people on a team.
Most sports are divided between men and women. So there’s a men’s ice hockey team and a women’s ice hockey team. There are women downhill skiers who compete against other women, and then men who compete against other men downhill skiiers. Some of the events have a team relay where all the men and women on a team go against another.
The best of the best athletes, winning medals, and Olympic traditions —
At the Olympics, we get to watch the best of the best people doing it! Because not just anyone can go and compete in the Olympic Games. Each person there is one of the best person from their country at that sport! They’ve worked very hard for a long time to get really good at their sport.
People in every country have to qualify. For example, in the United States, all of the alpine downhill skiers got together and raced against each other to see who was the best! And then those skiers get to be part of the team from the United States who goes to the Olympics.
The athletes represent their country. When it’s a team, it’s the Team USA Ice Hockey team! When they win, it’s thought of as a win for the United States!
And once they get to the Olympic games, you don’t find out who’s the best of the best in just one day! In most of the events the athletes will have to compete many times to get to the final event! They keep going against each other, until there’s just the best of the best left, and then someone gets a medal!
T reminds us that the medals are gold for 1st place, silver for 2nd place, and bronze for 3rd place.
If a team sport wins a medal, each player gets their own, they don’t have to share one.
At each Olympic Games, the medal colors are all the same, but what they look like, their design, changes! And there’s a ribbon that the athletes can wear around their necks. It’s a big deal to win an Olympic medal.
There’s a medal ceremony for each sport, where the medal winners stand on podiums. The gold medal winner hears their national anthem, the official song from their country. It’s a great Olympic Tradition.
Another fun tradition is the Opening Ceremony. There’s a parade of many of the athletes, as well as performances and the end of the Torch Relay!
During the torch relay, a flame is carried far and wide, passed between many people over months! It ends at the opening ceremony, where the final torchbearer, the last person to carry that torch, will enter a stadium in the host city and light a cauldron with it! And that moment is the official start of the Olympic Games!