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The United States will send its largest Winter Olympic delegation ever to the Milan Cortina Games, with 232 athletes traveling for the event. The total number of competitors could surpass the record of 228 set at Pyeongchang 2018.
With Olympic competition set to begin Wednesday ahead of the official start on Friday, here are 10 athletes to watch:
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Chloe Kim, snowboarding
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The Torrance native is trying to become the first snowboarder to win three consecutive gold medals in halfpipe but will be competing with a torn labrum. Her status for the Games was in question after she suffered the injury during a training run in Switzerland about one month before the Olympics.
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Red Gerard, snowboarding
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Gerard seemed poised to be the next male American snowboarding star after the then-17-year-old became the youngest U.S. male to win a gold medal in slopestyle in 2018. But he faltered in Beijing and finished fourth. The 2022 Games were the first time in history that a U.S. man did not win an individual medal in the event.
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Lindsey Vonn, Alpine skiing
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Six years and one knee replacement after retiring, Vonn is back on the Olympic stage. She wasn’t placed on the Olympic team simply for sentimental reasons: The 41-year-old earned her first World Cup podium in seven years with a second-place super-G finish in Sun Valley, Idaho last March, and in December, she claimed her first World Cup win since 2018 at St. Mortiz in Switzerland. Vonn sustained a knee injury when she crashed out in a World Cup downhill race last week, but she expects to compete at the Olympics.
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Mikaela Shiffrin, Alpine skiing
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The most decorated alpine skier in history is aiming for redemption after her meltdown in Beijing, where she did not finish three races, including her two signature events, and failed to podium. The two-time Olympic champion already has the most Olympic golds for an American in Alpine skiing.
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Ilia Malinin, figure skating
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“The Quad God” finally gets to make his Olympic debut after his controversial omission in 2022. With the world’s only quadruple axel, the 21-year-old Malinin is the overwhelming favorite to win the United States’ second consecutive men’s singles gold medal. The United States hasn’t had back-to-back Olympic champions since Scott Hamilton and Brian Boitano in 1984 and 1988, respectively.
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Alysa Liu, figure skating
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Liu retired at 16 years old after the Beijing Olympics, took two years off and is now launching a comeback practically never seen in figure skating. At 20, she is the reigning world champion and the first U.S. woman to win the world title since 2006. The U.S. women are trying to end a 20-year Olympic podium drought and have three contenders with Liu, Amber Glenn and Isabeau Levito.
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Madison Chock and Evan Bates, figure skating
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The three-time ice dance world champions Madison Chock and Evan Bates enter their fourth Olympic Games together looking to cap off their competitive careers with the one medal they haven’t won. Chock, a Redondo Beach native, and Bates, now in his fifth Olympics, were part of the gold-medal team in Beijing, but haven’t finished on the podium in the individual event.
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Jordan Stolz, speedskating
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Since making his Olympic debut at 17, Stolz has become a star in international speedskating. He was the first man to win three world championships in one year in 2023 and repeated in the 500, 1,000 and 1,500 meters in 2024. He also competes in the team pursuit. U.S. speedskating has several medal contenders, including two-time Olympic bronze medalist Brittany Bowe and gold medalist Erin Jackson, who became the first Black woman to win an individual gold medal at the Winter Olympics in 2022.
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Danny Casper, curling
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Welcome to a new era for U.S. curling. For the first time in two decades, John Shuster will not represent the United States at an Olympic Games. The skip who led his team to the United States’ only curling gold medal in 2018 will give way to the 24-year-old Casper, whose team upset Shuster at the U.S. team trials. Team Casper includes Luc Violette, Ben Richardson, Aidan Oldenburg and Rich Ruohonen. Ruohonen, a 54-year-old alternate, would be the oldest American to compete in a Winter Olympics in any medal sport if he is called into action.
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Elana Meyers Taylor, bobsled
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The most decorated Black athlete in Winter Olympics history, Taylor is still looking for her first Olympic gold. The five-time medalist returns to her fifth Olympics as a mother of two. In 2022, she took silver in the Olympic debut of monobob behind fellow U.S. pilot Kaillie Humphries, who has won three Olympic gold medals.
The post Ten U.S. athletes to watch at the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics appeared first on Los Angeles Times.
