This week marks the opening of the Winter Olympics, and our region is well represented by incredible competitors.
By Lannan O’Brien
Twenty-seven athletes from across New England will be competing in the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games. With 116 events held from February 6-22, the games will feature cold-weather sports such as bobsledding, luge, curling, alpine skiing, and more. The events will air on NBC, USA Network, and CNBC, and will be available to stream on Peacock and the NBC apps.
Tuning in? These are just a few of the talented New England athletes to watch.
CONNECTICUT:
After seeing a speedskating commercial on the Disney Channel, a nine-year-old Kristen Santos-Griswold was hooked. The Fairfield, Connecticut athlete had been figure skating since she was three, but the new sport was clearly a perfect fit: it led to her Olympic debut at the Olympic Winter Games Beijing in 2022 (placing fourth in the 1000-meter), followed by the 2024 ISU Short Track World Championships, where she became the first American short track speedskater to win medals at all three individual distances.
MASSACHUSETTS:
The bar is high for North Reading, Massachusetts’ Alex Carpenter, a former Boston College hockey player who now plays for the Seattle Torrent in the Professional Women’s Hockey League. The two-time Olympic medalist earned silver at the Olympic Games Beijing in 2022 and the Olympic Games Sochi in 2014. She has competed in 10 world championships and represented the US at four Four Nations Cups. You might say that winter sports are in her blood: Carpenter’s father, Bobby Carpenter, is an 18-year National Hockey League star, and her mother, Julie Carpenter, is a former competitive figure skater.
In addition, all eyes will be on 24-year-old Maxim Naumov of Norwood, a figure skater whose Olympian parents – 1994 pairs world champions Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov – died last year in the Flight 5342 plane crash near Washington National Airport. The 67 victims of the tragedy included 29 skaters, coaches, and family members returning from the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Kansas.
NEW HAMPSHIRE: Olympian Sean Doherty of Center Conway, New Hampshire, was the first teenager and the youngest US athlete to compete in biathlon at the 2014 Sochi Games. Now 30 years old, he has represented the US at eight world championships and qualified for the Olympic Winter Games for a fourth time (in addition to Sochi, he competed in Pyeongchang in 2018 and Beijing in 2022). A US Army veteran, Doherty is also a member of the U.S. Army World Class Athlete Program.
VERMONT: Skiing runs in Ryan Cochran-Siegle’s family: he is one of six alpine skiing Olympians on the Cochran side, including his mother, Barbara Ann Cochran, who earned a gold medal in giant slalom at the Olympic Winter Games Sapporo in 1972. Cochran-Siegle himself became the only US alpine skiing medalist at the 2022 Beijing Olympic Games, earning silver in the super-G. Outside of athletics, the 33-year-old Starksboro, Vermont resident stays busy at his family’s maple syrup shop, where they produce Cochran’s Slopeside Syrup.
MAINE: Bethel, Maine bobsledder Frank Del Duca made his Olympic debut at the Olympic Winter Games Beijing in 2022. Then in 2025, Del Duca piloted his team to fourth place in two- and four-man bobsled events at the IBSF World Championships in Lake Placid, New York. The 34-year-old is also a sergeant in the US Army and a member of the U.S. Army’s World Class Athlete Program.
Browse the full list of New England athletes competing in this winter’s Olympic Games:
Connecticut
Austin Florian, 31
Skeleton
Clarkson University
Southington, CT
Olivia Giaccio, 25
Olympian 2022
Freestyle Skiing
Columbia University ’24
Redding, CT
Kristen Santos-Griswold, 31
Olympian 2022
Speedskating, Short Track Speedskating
University of Utah
Fairfield, CT
Tage Thompson, 28
Ice Hockey
University of Connecticut
Orange, CT
Massachusetts
Matt Boldy, 24
Ice Hockey
Boston College
Millis, MA
Alex Carpenter, 31
Olympian 2014, 2022
Ice Hockey
Boston College
North Reading, MA
Zachary DiGregorio, 24
Olympian 2022
Luge
Medway, MA
Korey Dropkin, 30
Curling
University of Minnesota Duluth
Southborough, MA
Jack Eichel, 29
Ice Hockey
Boston University
North Chelmsford, MA
Chevonne Forgan, 25
Luge
Chelmsford, MA
Noah Hanifin, 29
Ice Hockey
Boston College
Norwood, MA
Ansel Haugsjaa, 21
Luge
Framingham, MA
Kris Horn, 31
Olympian 2022
Bobsled
Pembroke, MA
Julia Kern, 28
Olympian 2022
Cross-country skiing
Waltham, MA
Julie Letai, 25
Olympian 2022
Speedskating
University of Utah
Medfield, MA
Maxim Naumov, 24
Figure Skating
Norwood, MA
New Hampshire
Sean Doherty, 30
Olympian 2014, 2018, 2022
Biathlon
Center Conway, NH
Caroline Harvey, 23
Olympian 2022
Ice Hockey
University of Wisconsin
Salem, NH
Grace Henderson
Freestyle Skiiing
Durham, NH
Hunter Henderson, 23
Freestyle Skiing
University of Utah
Durham, NH
Vermont
Ryan Cochran-Siegle, 33
Olympian 2018, 2022
Alpine Skiing
UVM
Starksboro, VT
Mac Forehand, 24
Olympian 2022
Freestyle skiing
Stratton Mountain School (Stratton, Vt.)
Winhall, VT
Ben Ogden, 25
Olympian 2022
Cross-Country Skiing
University of Vermont ‘22
Landgrove, VT
Jack Young
Cross-Country Skiing
Jay, VT
Maine
Frank Del Duca, 34
Olympian 2022
Bobsled
University of Maine
Bethel, ME
Sam Morse, 29
Alpine Skiing
Dartmouth College
Carrabassett Valley, ME
Nathan Pare
Snowboarding
Bethel, ME
