Day 0: Cell phones on silent
From The GIST (hi@thegistsports.com)
Let the games begin!
Buongiorno and welcome to our first daily Olympic newsletter of the Milano Cortina Games. Every Monday through Friday, we’ll be here breaking down the biggest storylines, tallying up the latest medal count (starting on Monday!), curating the can’t-miss events, and so much more. The next viral chocolate muffin? Yep, we’ll have that too.
- Speaking of coverage, of course we didn’t forget about the Big Game. Keep an eye out for our Super Bowl preview on Sunday, along with a The Group Chat edition celebrating the day. We contain multitudes.
🏒 Defensewoman and friend of The GIST Laila Edwards made history in yesterday’s tourney-opening 5–1 preliminary round win over Czechia, becoming the first Black woman to ever hit the ice for the U.S. Olympic women’s hockey team.
- Elsewhere, Canada and Finland had to reschedule their opening group stage game after a norovirus outbreak depleted the Finns’ roster.
⛷️ American skier Mikaela Shiffrin is officially narrowing her focus and will compete in three events these Games: the slalom, giant slalom, and slalom in the team combined event. That’s half the races she entered in 2022, when she left the Winter Games without a medal. Eyes on the prize.
🥌 Power outages aside, it’s been a perfect start for the red, white, and blue’s mixed doubles curling team of Cory Thiesse and Korey Dropkin, who beat previously undefeated Team Canada 7–5 this morning. Rock on.
🏂 The 12-snowboarder men’s big air final is set after yesterday’s qualification round. Headlining the star-studded field? Reigning gold medalist Yiming Su of China, two-time X Games gold medalist Hiroto Ogiwara of Japan, and seventeen-year-old American Ollie Martin. Steezy.
⛸️ The fan favorite figure skating action begins with this weekend’s team event, a three-day competition featuring 10 countries, including the reigning gold and silver medalists, the U.S. and Japan.
- These two nations remain the ones to beat, especially with America’s Ilia “Quad God” Malinin leading the way in men’s singles and the dominant Blade Angels on the women’s side.
PRESENTED BY Toyota
✨ The flag football glow-up of our dreams
👀 Picture this:
- 💨 Girls running crisp routes on the same turf that hosted NFL Pro Bowlers 24 hours before.
- 📣 Team Toyota NFL stars, like LA Rams wide receiver Puka Nacua and San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy, on the sidelines — not as the main characters — but as the hype squad.
- 💡 A youth flag football field that used to go dark after sunset, now lit up for night games.
That’s the lane Toyota’s picked: Not just sponsoring the NFL’s biggest moments, but supporting the girls who are proving that football is for everyone. Now that’s a game we can get behind.
⛷️ Never back down
The GIST: Thought gilded American skier Lindsey Vonn’s comeback was over when she ruptured her ACL last week? Think again. With just two days until Vonn plans to compete for a fourth career Olympic medal, let’s explain the stunning feat she has on deck. Olympians, they’re not like us.
🤔 How can she ski on that injury?: When you hear “ACL injury,” your mind might jump to athletes like college basketball star JuJu Watkins or Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, who are sidelined for nine to 12 months.
- The ACL’s main job is to provide stability in the knee, and for that reason, any normal person should not ski on such an injury. But, as explained in this Yahoo Sports article, Vonn isn’t a normal person; she’s an Olympian.
- With decades of training behind her, it’s possible that Vonn has enough strength in her surrounding leg muscles, namely her quads and hips, to compensate for one unstable knee during Sunday’s race. That’s why she’s still training like a beast, knee brace and all.
⏰ It all goes down Sunday at 5:30 a.m. ET: Boasting an ironclad reputation as one of the greatest skiers of all time, 41-year-old Vonn has nothing left to prove — or if you ask her, she has nothing to lose. A medal favorite before the injury, now Vonn’s ready for one more attempt at 90 seconds of glory. Simply legendary.
PRESENTED BY Toyota
🚙 When it comes to supporting girls chasing football dreams, Toyota’s making moves. Not just down the highway, but on the newly glowed-up gridiron.
- From upgrading local fields to teaming up with flag football leagues, Toyota’s backing the girls who make the game shine just a little bit brighter.
Because driving change isn’t just about horsepower — it’s about girl power.
Event | ⏰ | 👀 |
| 🏅⛷️ Men’s Downhill final | Tomorrow at 5:30 a.m. | 🇺🇸 Ryan Cochran-Siegle |
| 🏒 Women’s hockey prelims | Tomorrow at 10:40 a.m. | 🇺🇸 U.S. vs. 🇫🇮 Finland |
| 🏅🏂 Men’s Big Air final | Tomorrow at 1:30 p.m. | 🇺🇸 Ollie Martin |
PRESENTED BY Toyota
🌟🏈 The future of women in football? It’s so bright, it glows. And our pals at Toyota aren’t just cheering from the sidelines: They’re flipping the switch ON for girls in the game.
- When a brand starts spotlighting high school girls playing flag football — literally and figuratively — that’s what stepping up looks like.
Welcome to our new section on the culture of the Games, courtesy of The Group Chat. Here’s what’s buzzing in The GIST HQ’s Slack channel as the Olympics get underway.
- 🇨🇦🇺🇸 Tate McRae diplomacy
- 😳 Another crotch-based scandal (see Part I here)
- 💅 Which country we’re most excited to see during the
Parade of Nations’Fit Parade
Presented By Unrivaled
🔥 It’s time for The Heat Check, our weekly segment spotlighting Unrivaled’s spiciest showdowns. Eight games will grace our screens over the next few days, each one offering the perfect mix of storylines and superstars, but one’s topping our must-watch list:
🦉 Lunar Owls BC at 👟 Laces BC — Tonight at 8:45 p.m. ET — TNT
- When Lunar Owls star Marina Mabrey is on, she’s on — just check Unrivaled’s single-game scoring record. But buckets won’t come easy against the league-best Laces, who boast two defensive juggernauts: Jackie Young and Brittney Sykes.
Today’s email was brought to you by Alessandra Puccio and Lisa Minutillo. Editing by Katie Kehoe Foster. Fact-checking and ops by Elisha Gunaratnam. Ads by Alessandra Puccio and Lisa Minutillo. Managing edits by Lauren Tuiskula. Head of content Ellen Hyslop.