#cross-country-skiing

#cross-country-skiing

It's the last full day of competition at the 2026 Milano-Cortina Winter Games. There's a pair of big curling games on Team Canada's schedule: the men will play in the gold-medal match at 1:05 p.m. ET and the women are chasing bronze at 8:05 a.m. ET. Canada also has a good chance for another gold medal in men's ski cross. The final race is at 7:10 a.m. ET.

If a dog could compete in the Winter Olympics, which disciplines would it be best at? This age-old question took on new relevance Wednesday, when a Czechoslovakian wolfdog dashed onto the cross-country skiing course during the women's team sprint qualifiers. "So I'm going to say that it's domesticated. Wants to enjoy the finish as well," said commentator Duane Dell'Oca as the canine interloper, a local pooch named Nazgul, raced Croatia's Tena Hadzic and Australia's Phoebe Cridland across the finish line.

"I was like, 'Am I hallucinating?'" Tena Hadzic, a 21-year-old Croatian skier, told NPR. There on the course was a real, live, beautiful wolfdog. He appeared on the final stretch of the qualifying event Wednesday morning and raced along, pursuing the sliding track camera like a superstar before turning to follow a couple of athletes across the finish line. Look at him:

"Honestly, today I feel like the win belongs to our wax team,"

I cannot tell any trick that anyone on skis or a snowboard does from any other trick that anyone else does; I have to take Johnny Weir's word for what is an axel vs. what is a salchow; and watching ski jumping is like looking at a painting. For one, he's up there, while his competitors are back there, but more relevant to our purposes, he can pound out the pace on skis in a way that nobody else can.

I was young and crazy and was skiing somewhere I shouldn't have been in Lebanon and I fell 14 meters,