There's a New Winter Olympic Sport and it is INSANE

The Winter Olympic Games do not receive the same adulation from the masses as the summer games. Some of that is because of the scope of the event. There’s such a wide variety of sports during the summer Olympics, it does not matter your taste, you can find something you like. As for the winter games, there aren’t a ton of different ways to manipulate snow, ice, and sport.

Before every edition of the summer games, every talk show covers the new sports being introduced for the first time. Skateboarding, surfing, and climbing made their debut in 2020. Breaking arrived in Paris and created an unforgettable viral moment. In L.A., we will see flag football in the Olympics for the first time, along with squash, cricket, and 6-man lacrosse.

The Winter Olympics have not introduced a brand new sport since snowboarding in 1998 (Skeleton returned in 2002 after a 50+ year absence, so that doesn’t really count). That’s all changing this year, with a sport I previously thought to be impossible.

Ski mountaineering is a concept that defies physics and, really, the entire concept of skiing. The whole point of this sport is to glide through the snow down a mountain. Instead of taking a lift to the top, in ski mountaineering, a.k.a SkiMo, these Olympic athletes ski up the mountain. Yes, ski up a mountain.

If you’re asking yourself, “How in the **** do you ski up a mountain?” Like Doubting Thomas, you really have to see it to believe it. Even once you see it, it’s still hard to understand how they can climb up the hill on skis that are designed to slide down a hill.

The trick in SkiMo is the equipment. The skis have skins on the bottom surface to apply traction while ascending the mountain. At various points in this obstacle course, the Olympic athletes will remove their skis, throw them on their backs, and climb up stairs. Once the competitors reach the top of the mountain, the skins are removed, and they race to the finish line at the bottom of the hill.

There will be three different Ski Mountaineering events at the 2026 Winter Olympics: men’s sprint, women’s sprint, and mixed relay. The sprints only last about three minutes, which sounds like the perfect sweet spot to hold your attention while casually watching on Peacock.

If you’re fired up to watch this new Olympic sport in Northern Italy, you’re going to have to wait a bit. Ski Mountaineering makes its debut ahead of the second weekend of the games, starting with the men’s and women’s sprint on Thursday, Feb. 19.

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