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The 2026 Winter Olympic Games in northern Italy will officially begin exactly 100 days from Wednesday with the opening ceremony at storied San Siro Stadium in Milan.
Here’s a look at 10 Canadian athletes to follow over the next few months as they compete on their respective global tours and sharpen their skills for a run at the Olympic medal podium this February.
Will Dandjinou (short track speed skating): Canada emerged as the planet’s top short track nation last season, racking up 37 medals, including 21 gold, across the six World Tour stops to capture the team title before winning six of the nine events and 10 total medals at the world championships.
The six-foot-three Dandjinou was (literally and figuratively) Canada’s biggest star, winning a global-high eight individual races on the World Tour to capture his first overall title before grabbing four medals at the world championships, highlighted by a gold in the 1,500 metres. As he gears up for his Olympic debut, Dandjinou has won four of his six solo events so far this season.
March to Milano: William Dandjinou soaring to new heights
Rachel Homan (curling): The Olympics have brought nothing but sorrow to the five-time Scotties Tournament of Hearts-winning skip. In 2018, Homan shockingly went 4-5 to miss the playoffs in the women’s event, and four years later she and John Morris failed to advance in mixed doubles with a 5-4 record. But Homan’s team should be favoured for the women’s gold in Milan after capturing back-to-back world championships in 2024 and 2025, winning more than 90 per cent of their games last season and taking both Grand Slam titles so far this season.
They still have to win the Canadian Olympic trials next month in Halifax, but that shouldn’t be a problem as Homan’s team went undefeated at the past two Scotties and hasn’t lost to a Canadian opponent in more than a year.
Connor McDavid (hockey): With five scoring titles, three regular-season MVP awards and a playoff MVP under his belt before his 29th birthday, there’s not much left to accomplish individually for the best player in the world. To fully get on the Gretzky/Lemieux/Howe/Orr level of greatness, McDavid needs to win a Stanley Cup, but in the meantime an Olympic gold medal would certainly help.
He’ll finally get a shot at one as NHL players return to the Games for the first time since 2014 â more than a year before the Edmonton Oilers superstar entered the league. It feels like another Canada-U.S. title clash is looming after McDavid scored the overtime winner to defeat the Americans in the final of the extremely heated 4 Nations Face-Off last February.
Sidney Crosby ‘grateful’ for another shot to win Olympic gold at Milano Cortina 2026
Marie-Philip Poulin (hockey): While McDavid eyes his first Olympics, the 34-year-old leader of the Canadian women’s team is preparing for her fifth, and possibly last. Poulin’s legacy is secure: Captain Clutch is the only hockey player ever to score in four Olympic finals, and her pair of goals in 2022 against the archrival United States gave Poulin her third gold medal.
The upcoming Games are the first since the creation of the Professional Women’s Hockey League, where the Montreal Victoire star is the reigning MVP after leading all players with 19 goals in 30 games last season.
Mikaël Kingsbury (freestyle skiing): At 33 years old, the moguls GOAT remains the king of the hill after winning nine of his 16 World Cup starts last season to extend his all-time record to 99 career victories and sweep the men’s moguls and dual moguls titles again. Kingsbury’s bid for an incredible fourth consecutive double gold at the world championships was foiled by Japanese rival Ikuma Horishima, who upset him in the moguls, but Kingsbury bounced back to take the dual gold. The 2018 Olympic champ and two-time silver medallist will get his first shot at an Olympic double after dual moguls was added to the program for Milan Cortina.
Every new event at Milano Cortina 2026
Ivanie Blondin (long track speed skating): After skating to Olympic gold in the women’s team pursuit and silver in the individual mass start in 2022, Blondin was Canada’s top medal winner at each of the last three world championships. Her nine pieces of hardware included gold in the team pursuit and sprint events in 2023, another team sprint gold in 2024 in Calgary, and three consecutive silver in the individual mass start.
Blondin led all Canadian women with four solo medals on the World Cup circuit last season, while sprinter Laurent Dubreuil topped the men with five but got shut out at the world championships.
Jack Crawford (alpine skiing): Crawford scored the country’s biggest alpine World Cup win in decades last January, becoming the first Canadian since 1983 to win the revered Kitzbühel downhill. That victory in skiing’s most prestigious, and dangerous, annual race burnished Crawford’s reputation as a clutch performer. At the 2022 Olympics he grabbed a surprising bronze in the (now defunct) individual combined event and missed the downhill podium by just seven hundredths of a second, and he won gold in the super-G at the 2023 world championships.
Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier (figure skating): Canada’s top ice dance tandem has reached the podium at four of the last five world championships, highlighted by back-to-back silvers in 2024 in Montreal and last season in Boston. They’ll have a tough time beating Americans Madison Chock and Evan Bates, who have captured three consecutive world titles, but Gilles and Poirier are one of two duos with a good shot at getting Canada back on the Olympic figure skating podium after the country got shut out in 2022 in Beijing. The other is the pairs team of Deanna Stellato-Dudek and Maxime Deschamps, who won the world title in 2024 before falling to fifth last season.
In 100 days the Milan-Cortina Olympics will open. Where will you be?
Ãliot Grondin (snowboard cross): Since winning a pair of Olympic medals as a 20-year-old in 2022 (silver in the men’s event, bronze in the mixed team), Grondin has matured into the world’s top men’s snowboard crosser. He captured his first World Cup title with an incredibly dominant 2023-24 season in which he won seven gold and 10 total medals in 11 starts, then added his first world championship gold last season along with his second straight World Cup crown.
Reece Howden (ski cross): Canada should have several ski cross medal contenders in Italy after winning its fourth consecutive Nations Cup for the most overall points on the World Cup circuit. Howden led the way with seven victories to capture the third season-long championship of his career (over the last three years he’s won the Crystal Globe twice and finished second). On the women’s side, 2014 Olympic champion and 2022 silver medallist Marielle Thompson is making her way back from a season-ending knee injury that derailed her bid for a second straight World Cup title.
More on the 2026 Winter Olympics
