Thousands of the world’s best athletes will flock to Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo in Italy in February 2026 for the 25th Winter Olympics. While sports fans are focused on the athletic feats of the Olympians, science enthusiasts can also have fun watching them.
Lots of winter sports are governed by unique laws of physics – from skaters speeding across the ice to skiers and snowboarders seemingly floating through the air. The artificial snow that athletes ski or board over is an engineering feat. The Winter Olympics even have math: Mathematicians have found that luck plays a larger role in hockey games than in other sports, such as baseball, basketball and football.
To help our readers follow both the sports and the science while watching the Games this year, The Conversation U.S. has compiled a set of stories from our archive.
1. The physics of ski jumping
Olympic ski jumping is not for the faint of heart. Athletes plummet down a jump about 300 feet (100 meters) tall, before taking off into the air. They then can fly more than the length of a football field before touching down.
As physicist Amy Pope wrote in her article, three key physics concepts allow them to float through the air: gravity, lift and drag.
The regulations around the sport reinforce these ideas. Athletes must wear form-fitting suits to ensure they’re not getting even a little extra lift from any loose or flapping cloth. The skis athletes use must have a length proportional to their height and weight, as well.
The tight suits ski jumpers wear prevent them from gaining an unfair advantage by using drag and lift from loose fabric.
AP Photo/Matthias Schrader
“By turning their skis and bodies into what is essentially a wing, ski jumpers are able to fight gravity and stay airborne for five to seven seconds,” Pope wrote.
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Ski jump: Flying or falling with style?
2. The physics of sliding sports
Unlike the ski jumpers, athletes in Olympic sliding sports – luge, bobsled and skeleton – don’t get any air, but they reach a more blistering speed while ripping down the icy track, around 90 miles per hour (145 kilometers per hour).
But just like ski jumping, gravity plays a part in sliding sports. As physicist John Eric Goff described in his article, it acts as the thrust sending them down the track. Sliders also wear skintight suits, which help them gain more speed by slicing through the air. Unlike the ski jumpers, they’re attempting to avoid drag and will lie as flat as possible on the sled. Bobsledders turn using steering controls, while luge and skeleton athletes turn using subtle body movements.
Luge racers need to be as aerodynamic as possible to minimize drag and go faster.
AP Photo/Ricardo Mazalan
“All of these subtle movements are hard to see on television, but the consequences can be large – oversteering may lead…
