All you need to know about the 2026 Winter Olympics

It's snow time.

The Milan-Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics are upon us and Italy is ready - almost - to host 'the greatest show on Earth'.

Some 2,900 athletes from more than 90 countries will compete on snow and ice over the next 16 days.

The Games are spread out across hundreds of miles in northern Italy, from fashionable Milan to chic Cortina d'Ampezzo, to the fellow Dolomite regions of Predazzo and Tesero, and the Alpine resorts of Livigno and Bormio.

Here is everything you need to know.

What is happening at the opening ceremony?

While the action began on Wednesday, the Games officially get under way on Friday when the opening ceremony takes place at Milan's iconic San Siro stadium.

A who's who of stars are set to appear, including multiple Grammy Award winner Mariah Carey and Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli.

Given the vast distances between the Olympic venue 'clusters', it's not possible for all athletes to be in Milan. But fear not, those based elsewhere will not miss out on the fun.

A second ceremony, including its own Olympic cauldron, will take place in Cortina, while other satellite ceremonies will occur in Predazzo and Livigno.

Figure skater Lilah Fear and bobsleigh pilot Brad Hall have the honour of carrying the Great Britain flag. Fear will do so in Milan, while Hall will be in Cortina.

BBC coverage of the opening ceremony starts from 18:30 GMT, live on BBC Two and iPlayer.

Who are Team GB's best medal hopes?

Could it be that Great Britain - a land of no ice track, Eddie the Eagle and an average of 13 days of snow per year - is becoming a winter sports nation? Whisper it quietly, but the next few weeks could prove it so.

Team GB's best medal haul from a Winter Games is five - at Sochi 2014 and Pyeongchang 2018 - but UK Sport says up to eight medals could be won this time around.

So who could be standing on the podium?

Team GB have two of the best men's skeleton athletes in two-time world champion Matt Weston and Marcus Wyatt. Between them, they won every World Cup gold medal this season.

Take your pick of snowboarders Mia Brookes and Charlotte Bankes, and freestyle skiers Kirsty Muir and Zoe Atkin, as to who could win the nation's first Olympic gold or silver medal on snow.

On the ice, Lewis Gibson and Lilah Fear - widely seen as the next Torvill and Dean - are very much in with a shout of winning a first British Olympic figure skating medal since 1994, while Britain's curlers look set to add to their two medals from 2022.

What is new?

For the first time since the 2002 Games in Salt Lake City, a new sport has been added to the Winter Olympic programme.

Ski mountaineering - or skimo - will take place in the resort of Bormio and features three medal events: men's and women's sprint, and the mixed relay.

Athletes start by sprinting uphill with adhesive skins on their skis to provide traction. They then remove the skis, placing them in their backpack, and continue climbing on foot.

After a further uphill section on skis, they remove the skins and ski downhill to the finish line.

There are no British athletes competing in skimo at the Games.

A string of new events have also been added to the programme for Milan-Cortina: men's and women's dual moguls, men's and women's luge doubles, men's and women's team alpine combined, women's large hill individual in ski jumping, and the mixed relay team in skeleton.

France's Emily Harrop - who has British parents - is a multiple ski mountaineering world champion

What has the build-up been like?

Milan and Cortina were selected as host cities in 2019 and while existing facilities have largely been used, new venues have been created for ice hockey and the sliding sports.

A year out from the Games starting, the Cortina Sliding Centre - rebuilt on a century-old track at a cost of more than £72m - was facing a race against time to be ready.

While that race was won, with the opening races of the bobsleigh and skeleton season taking place on the new track in November, the same cannot be said for the Milano Santagiulia ice hockey stadium.

As recently as Sunday, Olympic organisers said the stadium would not be completely finished in time for Thursday's first match of the Games - but they were "absolutely certain" all scheduled fixtures will be played there.

The 11,800-capacity stadium has been beset by delays and controversies - including a boycott warning from the National Hockey League (NHL).

The rink in Milan, approved by the International Ice Hockey Federation, is shorter than the minimum requirement in the NHL, leading to suggestions there could be an increase in high-speed collisions. The quality of the ice has also been questioned.

From an Olympics controversies perspective, things didn't get any better for hosts Italy when their biathlete Rebecca Passler was kicked out of the Games because of a failed doping test on Monday.

Are any Russian or Belarusian athletes competing?

Athletes with Russian or Belarusian passports have been banned from many sports since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

In September, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) said it would allow athletes from the two nations to compete at the Winter Games under a neutral flag and strict conditions, as they did at the 2024 summer Olympics.

Those conditions include showing they had not actively supported the war and were not contracted to the military.

In total, 20 competitors from Russia and Belarus are set to participate as Individual Neutral Athletes (AINs) at Milan-Cortina across eight sports.

However, four of the 13 Russian athletes approved to compete have links to activity supporting the war in Ukraine, according to evidence seen by BBC Sport.

They are figure skater Petr Gumennik, cross-country skiers Savelii Korostelev and Dariya Nepryaeva, and speed skater Kseniia Korzhova.

The IOC said it could not comment on individual cases but stated that the panel had "reviewed the athletes in accordance with the executive board decision and the principles it had established".

None of the athletes named responded to BBC Sport's requests for comment.