A breakthrough World Cup win puts Team USA in the mix for skimo’s first Olympic medals.
Ski mountaineering, or skimo, makes its Olympic debut at 2026 Milano Cortina, and the U.S. is suddenly looking strong in a sport traditionally dominated by Europeans, particularly the French, Swiss, and Italians. At a World Cup in Utah in early December, Cam Smith and Anna Gibson — in Gibson’s first-ever skimo World Cup — won the mixed relay and earned the U.S. its Olympic quota spot.
Their win and Olympic qualification was “a defining moment for U.S. ski mountaineering,” says Sarah Cookler, USA Skimo’s head of sport.
Smith, 29, competed in cross-country skiing, mountain biking, trail running, and skimo while studying at Western Colorado University in Gunnison. He is an 11-time U.S. skimo national champion. Gibson, 26, is an internationally ranked runner, both on the track and trail (growing up in Teton Village, Wyoming, she also raced cross-country and alpine in her youth). She competed in the 2024 U.S. Olympic Trails on the 1500, making it to the semifinals. Six days before Olympic Trails, she finished second in the vertical kilometer at the Broken Arrow Sky Race. In the World Mountain Running Association’s rankings, Gibson is currently the top American in tenth.
In skimo, going into the World Cup in Utah, Smith and Gibson were ranked 13th, with only the top 12 teams going to the Olympics. They had hoped to just qualify for Milano Cortina, then once in Italy, celebrate that they were part of skimo’s first Games.
“But with us vaulting from 13th to winning our first World Cup, we can dream much bigger dreams,” Smith said after their mixed team win. “This put the rest of the world on notice, and we’re absolutely going there to fight for medals.”
The sport will be held in Bormio but is not quite what many expect. This Olympics, the only skimo events are men’s and women’s sprints and a mixed relay. In other words, neither competition will take ski mountaineers very high on the mountain.
The sprint only takes about three minutes from start to finish, with a qualifier, heats, and a final. Similar to a cross-country skiing sprint, skimo’s sprint features six skiers at a time charging off the starting line (after an initial qualifier). The uphill features three sections: a climb on skis with skins; a boot pack or “foot part,” as they say in Europe, where they carry their skis; and a zigzag section called “diamonds.”
At the top of the sprint course, skiers rip off their skins in the transition zone and race down what resembles a skier cross course — with gates, bermed turns, and a mandatory jump — to the finish. Equipment includes lightweight skis that are only 150 centimeters long for the women, 160 for the men, and lightweight boots. Equipment is standardized, with competitors having their boots, skis, and bindings weighed to the gram after competitions.
Only 18 skiers per gender will compete in the Olympic skimo sprint heats, with the top two moving on to the final.
The mixed relay features a man and a woman from the same country each running the course twice, with the women starting first.
Some racers and skimo fans are disappointed that the Olympics won’t feature the more classic all-the-way-to-the-summit ski mountaineering race: the individual. France will host the 2030 Winter Olympics, and their athletes frequently lead the ISMF standings, with Emily Harrop and Thibault Anselmet heavy favorites to win the 2026 Olympic sprints and mixed relay. Harrop and Anselmet are the reigning mixed relay world champions.
“There’s a positive way of looking at this,” says Cookler, “that it’s a gateway to showcasing the entire sport at future Olympics.”