Olympic Qualifying Solitude Resort
There is Lycra, and the smell of victory or defeat in the air. While we would rather avoid the binary, it’s true: this weekend brings either a high or a low for North American skimo. And here, yes, by skimo, we mean the racing, lycra, curated courses, and stopwatch-type skimo.
For the first time, skimo will be featured as a sport at the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympics. On December 6th at Solitude ski resort, up Big Cottonwood Canyon, the International Ski Mountaineering Federation (ISMF) will hold a World Cup race that will ultimately decide the U.S. and Canada’s 2026 Olympic skimo fate.
In short, neither North American country has auto-qualified athletes for the Games. And so…it comes down to a winner-take-all event on December 6th’s ISMF mixed relay race at Solitude. If Canada finishes ahead of the U.S. team, then yeehaw for the Maple Leaf flag. And…if the U.S. outpaces our peeps to the north, the U.S. sends a team to Milano Cortina. So, it will smell like victory and defeat, which is not how we like to associate mountain craft. But so be it, the international federations need rules and quotas.
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