Milano Cortina 2026 Match Quiz

Answer: Norway

A total of 29 nations were competing at the XXV Winter Olympic Games. In addition, there was the Individual Neutral Athletes grouping (designated AIN, being the initials of the French version of the name), consisting of approved individual athletes from Belarus and Russia.

Norway topped the medal table for the fourth successive Winter Olympics, managing 18 Gold, 12 Silver and 11 Bronze medals with 80 competitors. Of the top dozen placed nations, only third-placed Netherlands had fewer competitors with 39. They still managed 10 Golds, 20 medals in total. This amounted to just over half a medal per competitor (m/c = 0.518), slightly better than Norway with 41 medals (m/c = 0.513). Second-placed US had the most competitors at 232 with an m/c of 0.142. Canada placed 11th with the second-most competitors and an m/c of 0.102.

One Norwegian competitor won six medals, the most at the Games and all golds. That was cross-country skier Johannes Høsflot Klæbo. These added to his existing collection of five golds.

Answer: Germany

Podium sweeps are where one nation wins all three medals available for an event. This occurred in three events at these Games. In the women's sprint event in cross-country skiing, Sweden swept the board. In the men's 50 kilometre classical (also cross-country skiing) it was Norway's turn. Germany has been a bit of a sliding superpower and had previously achieved a podium sweep in the two-man bobsleigh event at the 2022 Games. Germany repeated this at the 2026 Games as well as winning all the team bobsleigh events (same as in 2022).

Answer: Italy

The decision to award the Games to the Italian cities Milan and Cortina d'Ampezzo was made in 2019. This was the first time that the Games had officially been co-hosted by two cities. In this case they were 250 km (155 mi) apart which presented some problems. Milan mainly hosted the ice events with the others dotted around Cortina, Livigno and Fiemme. Cortina had previously hosted the 1956 Winter Olympics while Torino had hosting duties for the 2006 event.

The 2026 event was therefore the third Winter Olympics hosted in Italy.

Answer: Netherlands

The sole World Record for the Games came in a semi-final race. This was the women's 500 metre short-track speed skating event, one of nine events in this category at the Games. Dutch skater Xandra Velzeboer went on to win the gold medal for this event as well as in the 1000 metre event.

She was also part of the team that set an Olympic Record in the mixed 2000 metre relay event. Despite the Olympic Record in the final, her team only came fifth under the points system used.

Answer: United States

The ice hockey matches were played in two venues in Milan. The finals for both men and women were between American and Canadian teams with the American teams winning both. Finland and Switzerland collected the bronze medals in the men's and women's events respectively.

The US men's team won the game in overtime, the first time the men's team had won gold in this event since the 1980 Winter Olympics. The US women's team also won their game in overtime against the defending champions. This was the third time the US women's team had won the event, the last time being in 2018 and with a 20-year gap for the time before that.

Answer: Sweden

There was a bit of a competition to hold the Games with a total of seven bids initially submitted. Four were withdrawn and one bid was not invited to continue, leaving the Swedish and Italian bids. The twin Italian cities were elected as hosts in 2019. The process started in 2017.

The bid from Sweden, the Stockholm-Åre bid, included Falun and Sigulda, Latvia as venues. The Latvian venue was included to avoid having to build new facilities, in line with an International Olympic Committee initiative. Sigulda was to host the bobsleigh, luge and skeleton events. If Sweden had won, Stockholm would have been the second city to have hosted both a Summer and Winter Olympics after Beijing.

Answer: Kazakhstan

American skater Ilia Malinin was the favourite going into the Games, being a three-time World Champion and winning various competitions in the lead-up to the Games. After an uncharacteristically poor performance, he said afterwards that the pressure of expectations affected him.

Representing Kazakhstan, Mikhail Shaidorov kept his equilibrium and secured the gold medal. In doing so he became only the second Kazakhstani athlete to win gold at a Winter Olympics, the last being Vladimir Smirnov in a 50 km cross-country ski race in 1994.

Answer: South Africa

Apart from the period between 1964 and 1988 when the country was excluded due to country's policy of apartheid, South Africa has attend every Winter Olympics since 1960 except 1992 (Albertville, France), 2014 (Sochi, Russia) and 2022 (Beijing, China) with competitors varying between 1 and 5 each time.

At the 2026 Games, there were five South African competitors in four sports with no medals won between them. No medals were won in earlier Winter Olympics by South African competitors either.

Answer: China

The Netherlands headed the medals table for speed skating, although it was the Dutch women who won most of their golds and medals. One of the men's events produced the only Chinese gold, namely the 1500 metres. This went to Ning Zhongyan in an Olympic Record time. His countryman Liu Harbin came last in that race, placed thirtieth and just over seven seconds behind.

Answer: Russia

Although Russia was banned from sending a national team, certain individual athletes from Russia were permitted to participate in the Games under neutral status. As one of the sponsors of the Games since 1998, Samsung's tradition was to provide every accredited athlete with a special Olympic Edition phone.

The phone for the 2026 Games was the Galaxy Z Flip7 Olympic Edition however the Russian athletes missed out. This was blamed on the export controls which were applied following the invasion of Ukraine by Russia in 2022. Similar issues arose at the 2024 Summer Olympics.