Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony LIVE: Mariah Carey to kick off 2026 Games with performance in Milan

Jennifer Dodds felt she and partner Bruce Mouat had produced their best performances yet as the duo recorded another two wins in Friday’s round-robin matches in the mixed doubles curling competition.

While they lined up against Sweden with an unblemished record so far in Cortina, they had narrowly defeated the Czech Republic in a nervy game on Thursday night.

Mouat and Dodds produced a strong showing against Sweden to win 7-4 in their morning match before a comprehensive 8-2 beating of Korea in the afternoon, with an end to spare in both games.

Dodds said: “Those two games were probably our best performances for both of us. We said after yesterday that we wanted to build and there were a couple of things we wanted to work on. We came out today and executed exactly what we wanted to do.”

Mouat felt he has now got to grips with the surface, adding: “I found (my groove).

“It was a lot of good communication last night after the game with the coaches and with Jen. I felt like I woke up this morning in a good place and I’m glad that the shots proved that.”

Hundreds of protesters chanted slogans, blew whistles and set off flares at a rally on Friday opposing the presence in Italy of U.S. immigration agents and the closure of streets ahead of the opening ceremony of the Milano-Cortina Winter Games.

Reports that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials would be deployed to protect Americans during the Olympics have galvanised opposition, given the agency’s front-line role in U.S. President Donald Trump’s aggressive deportation push at home.

“ICE OUT” and “ICE should be in my drinks, not my city” read some of the banners held by the student-led demonstrators.

Blowing plastic whistles — which have become a symbol of anti-ICE rallies in the United States — protesters in Milan also called on visiting U.S. Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio to go home.

Matt Weston & Marcus Wyatt – skeleton

As well as the freestyle skiing and snowboarding disciplines, GB have huge potential in skeleton – a sport which has seen at least one British medallist for every Winter Olympics it has featured in, bar Beijing.

Between them Matt Weston and teammate Marcus Wyatt won every single skeleton World Cup race this season, making Britain the first nation in history to achieve the feat. 28-year-old Weston is now a three-time World Cup overall winner, having won five of seven races on the circuit this season, and is the reigning world champion to boot, successfully defending his title in Lake Placid last March.

He is the red-hot favourite for individual gold in Cortina and a strong contender for another medal in the mixed team event alongside Tabby Stoecker, Britain’s top women’s skeleton athlete.

However, Marcus Wyatt’s stunning season – winning the two World Cup races not won by Weston and finishing third overall – puts Britain in the position of having two strong favourites for Olympic glory.

The 34-year-old won the European title in 2024 and was runner-up to Weston at last year’s World Championships, and played a crucial role in Britain sealing the mixed team title in the World Cup this season, winning two races alongside Stoecker.

He finished 16th on his Olympic debut in Beijing but after becoming one of the most consistent winners on the elite circuit anything less than a medal this time around would be a major shock.

Charlotte Bankes – snowboard cross

Charlotte Bankes is another British snow athlete with gold medal potential – as Baker pointed out, “We have this incredible array of female athletes on snow who are pulling extraordinary things out of the bag”. 30-year-old Bankes is an Olympic veteran, having already represented France – where she grew up – in Sochi and Pyeongchang before competing for GB in Beijing.

A quarter-final exit there means she has unfinished business with the Games, but her path to victory was made more difficult by a collarbone injury last season which required two surgeries and drastically shortened her off-season preparation. But the two-time World Cup winner has already won a mixed team World Cup round alongside Huw Nightingale, who she will team up with in Milano-Cortina, and an individual World Cup round earlier this month, making her another one to watch.

Kirsty Muir – freestyle skiing

Freestyle skier Kirsty Muir has had a less than straightforward journey to her second Olympic Games. The 21-year-old ruptured her anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in December 2023, remarkably managing to win bronze in a World Cup race despite being troubled by the as-yet undiagnosed injury.

She spent a year sidelined and had surgery on both the knee and a pre-existing shoulder problem, before returning in style, recording her first-ever World Cup victory just two months into her comeback, in March 2025.

The Scot was Team GB’s youngest athlete in Beijing, when she finished fifth in the Big Air and eighth in the slopestyle, and is in a strong position to improve on those results with two World Cup victories so far this season and two medals – gold in slopestyle and silver in Big Air – at the X Games last weekend.

Mia Brookes – snowboarding

19-year-old snowboarder Mia Brookes is another British favourite for a gold medal at the Games. She is making her Olympic debut in Milano-Cortina but is already a world champion and World Cup winner, having won the overall World Cup crystal globe last season alongside a second big air title.

She became the youngest world champion in snowboarding history with slopestyle gold in Georgia in 2023, simultaneously becoming GB’s first-ever world champion in the event, and is on top form heading to Italy having won X Games gold in slopestyle and bronze in Big Air this weekend. She will compete in both slopestyle and big air, with the potential for two medals at her maiden Games.

Zoe Atkin – freestyle skiing

Zoe Atkin finished ninth in her debut Olympics in Beijing but has taken the sport by storm since then, and is well placed to follow in the footsteps of older sister Izzy, who won Britain’s first-ever Olympic skiing medal with slopestyle bronze in Pyeongchang 2018.

The 23-year-old freestyle skier is the reigning world champion in halfpipe and won the overall World Cup crystal globe in the discipline last season, sharing the title with China’s Li Fanghui. She has carried that stunning form into the 2025-26 season, winning a second X Games gold last week, and has two silvers and a gold medal on the World Cup circuit so far this year, making her a heavy favourite for gold in Milano-Cortina.

Ever wondered what the lights are on the stones used in curling? Or what the power play is? Or maybe what a ski jump ramp is made of?

Well fortunately, The Independent has produced a number of explainers related to the Winter Games, with Flo Clifford on the ground in Milan and Cortina covering issues from curling regulations to Russian athletes and plenty more.

There are 16 sports on the programme this year, including one which has never featured at an Olympics before, ski mountaineering, and new events in existing disciplines: a mixed team event in skeleton, women’s doubles in luge, and a men’s super team events in large hill ski jumping. The alpine mixed team parallel event has been dropped and replaced by men’s and women’s combined event.

Highlights include events in Alpine skiing, biathlon, bobsleigh, cross-country skiing and ice hockey:

We’ve had curling, ice hockey and figure skating starting early but tomorrow will see the first day of Winter Olympics action proper.

Luge, speed skating, speed jumping and snowboarding events will all begin tomorrow, while the curling and hockey events continue too.