How To Watch MD Athletes As Winter Olympic Games Begin

Three athletes with ties to Maryland 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.

Olympic athletes from Maryland are among 2,900 from 93 countries competing for 116 gold medals across 16 sports.

Here's a look at who's competing:

• Noah Grove: Sled Hockey, Paralympian from Frederick
• Bryan Sosoo: Bobsled from Laurel
• Carsten Vissering: Bobsled from Bethesda

Grove was diagnosed with osteosarcoma, a form of bone cancer, in his left leg when he was four years old and had his leg amputated right after he turned five. Grove played soccer, baseball and lacrosse with a prosthetic leg for most of his childhood before trying adaptive sports and sled hockey at age 11. Within six years of trying the sport through the Bennett Blazers program in Baltimore, he would make the U.S. national Sled Hockey team.

Sosoo was the Maryland state champ in the 55-meter and triple jump. He competed internationally in track and field for Ghana until 2024, when he made the switch to bobsled and joined the U.S. national team. This is his first Olympics.

Vissering grew up in Bethesda, and swam at the same club as nine-time Olympic gold medalist Katie Ledecky. Vissering won a bronze medal at the 2013 world junior championships and attended USC where he would win an NCAA relay title and ended his college career by placing second in the 100-yard breaststroke at the 2019 NCAA championships. He transitioned from the water to the ice because of his love of strength training. Vissering made his IBSF World Cup debut in bobsled just over three years from competing at the NCAA Championships in swimming. In January 2026, he finished a career-best fourth place at an IBSF World Cup in the two-man bobsled with pilot Kris Horn and shortly after was named to his first U.S. Olympic team.

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:

• 3 Athletes From MD Qualify For The 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