How To Watch GA Athlete As Winter Olympic Games Begin

One previous Olympic medalist with ties to Georgia will compete in the 2026 Milan Cortina Olympic Games, which officially open Friday with a ceremony at Milan’s San Siro stadium. The games run through Feb. 22.

The opening ceremony is typically the most-viewed event of the game on official broadcasts, and is watched by millions of people worldwide. U.S. pop singer Mariah Carey and crossover tenor Andrea Bocelli are among the performers. The opening ceremony begins at 8 p.m. local time (2 p.m. Eastern).

The ceremony will be re-aired in a primetime broadcast at 8 p.m. Eastern on NBC.

The Olympic athlete from Georgia is among 2,900 from 93 countries competing for 116 gold medals across 16 sports.

Douglasville native Elana Meyers Taylor will represent Georgia in bobsledding. She won Olympic medals in 2010, 2014, 2018 and 2022; currently she has more Olympic medals than any other woman in bobsled.

Growing up near Atlanta, Meyers Taylor's earliest memory of the Olympics was 1996 when she got to hold the torch as an 11-year-old girl. She attended George Washington University on a softball scholarship, playing shortstop and pitcher. Elana began her bobsled career in 2007, making the national team in her rookie season and starting her transformation into one of the all-time greats in the sport.

Meyers Taylor made her Olympic debut at the Olympic Winter Games Vancouver 2010 as a push athlete for Eric Pac, where they would win the bronze medal. The following year, she transitioned to be a bobsled pilot and would win a silver medal at the Olympic Winter Games Sochi 2014 driving the sled. At the Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022, Meyers Taylor became the most decorated Black athlete in Winter Olympic history by winning two medals a silver in women's monobob and a bronze in 2-woman bobsled.

Preliminary heats began on Wednesday. Check here for a daily schedule.

Dozens of countries will stream or air each day's events, with some of them delaying broadcasts until prime time depending on the time zone. NBC, which has exclusive U.S. broadcasting rights for live coverage, will delay coverage until prime time in the United States, where Eastern Time is six hours behind Milan and Cortina. It will stream live competition on Peacock.

Peacock doesn’t offer a free trial, but a couple of other streaming services do: DirecTV, whose plans start with a five-day free trial and whose channel lineup includes all of those providing service (NBC, USA Network, CNBC, NBCSN); and Hulu + Live TV, whose plans start with a three-day trial.

This will be the most spread-out Winter Games in history: The two primary competition sites are the city of Milan and Cortina d'Ampezzo, the winter resort in the Dolomites that is more than 250 miles away by road. Athletes also will compete in three other mountain clusters besides Cortina, while the closing ceremony will be in Verona, 100 miles east of Milan.

Other key dates to watch are:

• Feb. 7: First gold medal events.
• Feb. 8: Gold medal, women’s Alpine skiing downhill.
• Feb. 13: Gold medal, men’s figure skating.
• Feb. 18: Gold medal, women’s Alpine skiing slalom.
• Feb. 19: Gold medal, women’s figure skating. Gold medal game, women’s ice hockey. First gold medals in ski mountaineering, a new Olympic sport.
• Feb. 22: Gold medal game, men’s ice hockey. Closing ceremony.

Two of the most decorated Alpine skiers in history, 41-year-old Lindsey Vonn and Mikaela Shiffrin, opened the World Cup season in dominant form. Vonn still plans to compete despite rupturing her ACL last week.

Eileen Gu is back in freestyle skiing, as is Chloe Kim in snowboarding. NHL players are back on Olympic ice for the first time since 2014, so watch for the likes of Sidney Crosby and Connor McDavid.

Ski mountaineering will make its Olympic debut, while skeleton has added a mixed team event, luge has added women’s doubles, and large hill ski jumping added women’s and men’s super team events.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Related:

• 1 Athlete From GA Qualifies For 2026 Milano Cortina Winter Olympics
• Speedskater Erin Jackson, Bobsledder Frank Del Duca Picked As US Flagbearers For Winter Olympics
• Vonn 'Confident' She Will Race At Olympics Despite 'Completely Ruptured' ACL In Left Knee