'We're on a dangerous trend unless we do something'

US Olympians raise alarm after witnessing 'hard to ignore' changes to sport: 'We're on a dangerous trend unless we do something'



As the 2026 Winter Olympics drew to a close in Milan and Cortina, athletes used their platform to raise awareness of a crucial global issue affecting our warming planet.

What's happening?
According to the Associated Press, American skiers Lindsey Vonn and Mikaela Shiffrin, as well as Italian skier Federica Brignone, spoke out about the rapidly melting glacial ice in the Alps and other mountain ranges around the world.



"Most of the glaciers that I used to ski on are pretty much gone," 41-year-old Vonn said on February 3 at a prerace press conference in Cortina, per the AP. "So that's very real and it's very apparent to us."

These Olympics highlighted the issue at hand: Cortina is a town that has historically been surrounded by glacier-capped mountains visible from the city. However, during this year's Olympics, it was clear that the glaciers on most of the mountains had shrunk massively from years past.

Another athlete, Team USA skier AJ Hurt, shared concerns regarding the start of the season in October in Sölden, Austria.

"Every year, I feel like we come and there's a little less snow. And every time, we're like, are we really going to start in October? There's no snow here," Hurt told the AP. "It is really sad and it's hard to ignore in this sport, definitely, when we're around it so much and it is so clear."

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