The Brand New Olympic Sport of Ski Mountaineering is One of The More Ridiculous (And Exhausting) Events You'll See at The Games
Sure, why not? It looks fucking brutal to compete in. I'll give them that. Skiing downhill is exhausting enough. You'd have to hold my family hostage to convince me to take up Ski Mountaineering.
There's just something about people running uphill in skis. It's a highly impressive feat of endurance. But I can't watch someone do it without laughing. Like this Norwegian super athlete during his cross-country ski race.
I'm starting to think the Winter Olympics are just making up anything they can to give Europe more medals. There's simply too many better ways to spend your time in the United States than skiing any direction but down. The only way I will ever get up the mountain is on chair lift or gondola. But in the mountainous regions of Europe, uphill skiing (and flat skiing) are apparently all the rage.
Fine. I guess if the United States can claim medals for swimming 100 different ways at the Summer Olympics, the Scandinavians can have their various mountain events.
Milan Cortina 2026 is the first Olympics where Ski Mountaineering has been featured. But it wasn't a Scandinavian who took gold. It was a Spanish woman, and a Swiss gentleman who get to claim the first ever Ski Mountaineering gold medals. By doing so, Oriol Cardona Coll of Spain won her country a Winter Olympic gold for the first time in 54 years.
And on Saturday we'll have the Ski Mountaineering Mixed Relay, where countries will have two skiers each, one man + woman, who they'll send up and down the mountain for the most grueling however many minutes in sports.
I especially enjoy all the man-made portions of Ski Mountaineering. The big wooden diamonds they have to run around early on in their ascent. The large set of snow-covered stairs that follow the transition.
Advertisement
The Olympics essentially put an obstacle course on the side of a mountain and called it a sport. Speaking of obstacle courses, be sure to tune into the brand new Summer Olympics sport of Obstacle Course Racing (or the modern pentathlon) - to debut in in Los Angeles 2028.
ESPN – The sport of modern pentathlon, a niche outlier at the Olympics, is getting rid of its horse competitions after the Paris Games and bringing in "American Ninja Warrior"-style obstacle courses for the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028.
Modern pentathlon's governing body, the UIPM, briefly considered cross country cycling -- which was reportedly considered too similar to triathlon -- before opting for obstacle courses similar to those on "American Ninja Warrior" for 2028.
Fingers crossed they can get Vic Romano and Kenny Blankenship on the call. Along with field reporter Guy LeDouche.
Sadly, the Winter Olympics are coming to an end. Soon enough I'll be back to watching college basketball and getting mad about the rules as the final minutes of every game turn into long drawn-out free throw contest. But it's been a fun two weeks of waking up to sports I only care about once every 4 years. I feel blessed to have learned about the existence Ski Mountaineering. Maybe the United States can even grab a Ski Mountaineering Mixed R on Saturday. I highly doubt it. But who cares? The gold medal in hockey should count for more anyways.