The fans next to the Olympic sliding track oohed and aahed with each sharp turn. They admired the navigational precision and soft landing. They shouted, “You’re No. 1!”
They were cheering for a drone pilot.
“I’m almost feeling like I am with the athletes on the tracks,” said Ralph Hogenbirk, the pilot operating one of the many drones that have become the buzzing — and, for some, unsettling — soundtrack of the 2026 Winter Olympics.
The robotic wasps chase behind lugers, skeleton pilots and bobsledders bombing down the ice track in Cortina d’Ampezzo. They are in hot pursuit of alpine skiers in the mountains of Bormio and record-shattering speedskaters gliding around the rinks in Milan, transporting viewers at home to the slopes and ice.
All of their unerring following has earned them a following of their own.
One night last week in Cortina, a small crowd gathered outside a white tent, cordoned off between a red tractor and heaps of dirty snow, a few yards below the start gate for the skeleton race. Inside, Mr. Hogenbirk sat in a corner, a visor over his eyes, piloting his nearly nine-ounce drone.
It hovered behind the skeleton athletes as they collected themselves, crept behind them as they began their mad dash to start the race and then picked up speed, whirring behind the competitors as they shot down the track’s first curves.
A screen in the tent showed the drone’s flight path, including when it left the track after the initial curves. It veered left and looped back over construction sites, parking lots, roped-off icy areas and into the cradled hands, red with cold, of Mr. Hogenbirk’s technician.
“Very cool,” said Mary-Anne Grotheer, 33, the wife of a skeleton competitor who left the races to watch the drones come and go.
Italians shouted, “Bravissimo!” and inquired about the drone’s specs. Germans appreciated its engineering. A group of British fans didn’t know what to think.
“What the hell?” said Oliver Dickie, 26, a lawyer from London, as the returning drone, its green light blinking in the night, buzzed by on the way back to the tent. He said he imagined it improved the experience for spectators watching at home but wondered “how scary this would be” to be tracked by one.
Athletes said not very.
“I actually didn’t know they were there,” said skier Lara Markthaler, 19, of South Africa, who competed in the women’s giant slalom on Sunday. She said she had a tougher time with “the start camera like 10 centimeters from our face. That is what we do notice.”
Others couldn’t wait to ski with Skynet.
“I saw the other competitors have drones and I was like, ‘Wow, that’s so cool, and I want to have that for my run,’” said Elin Van Pelt of Iceland, 20. She added with a laugh that having a drone follow her run for a television audience would mean, “I made it.”
Drones have been used at the Olympics since the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, Russia, but have become increasingly common as the technology improves and sports audiences grow more used to up-close action. In these Games, drones are being called on to do more than ever before.
Mr. Hogenbirk, a founder of the company Dutch Drone Gods, which has a background in professional drone racing, said that pilots of the drones had made sure the athletes were comfortable with them before the Games began.
“Maybe they hear it a little bit, but it’s not distracting because they’re so fully focused on where they’re going,” said Mr. Hogenbirk. He said that his team had filmed each athlete before the Games, and that “everyone had a chance to say, ‘No, I don’t want this.’ None of them did.”
Mr. Hogenbirk was speaking outside the tent, where he came to greet his adoring fans after his shift had ended. “People are just like filming and zooming in with their phones,” he said, adding that when the drones land people sometimes cheer, “Olympic medal!”
Among the drone spectators was Kate Bentley, 26, a data analyst from Bristol, England. She was on a ski trip with friends and decided to check out the Olympics, she said, but found the skeleton athletes whooshing by her at about 90 miles per hour less than riveting.
“I think skeleton could be a bit boring,” she said, “without the drones.”
Jason Horowitz is the Madrid bureau chief for The Times, covering Spain, Portugal and the way people live throughout Europe.
The post The Drone Games: Flying Cameras Are Everywhere at the Winter Olympics appeared first on New York Times.
