By DEREK GATOPOULOS

Cross-country skiing, the rugged grandfather of snow competition, will give its brightest stars a defining stage at the Milan Cortina Winter Games.

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Sporting greats such as Jessie Diggins of the United States and Italy’s own Federico Pellegrino arrive at the Feb. 6–22 Games still in form but nearing the end of their careers.

A cornerstone winter event, cross-country skiing traces its roots to centuries-old Nordic traditions and is considered one of the purest tests of endurance.

How it works

The biggest change at these Olympics is the equalization of race distances for men and women — extending the women’s longest event from 30 kilometers to 50. Twelve competitions are split evenly between genders, with distances ranging from the 1,585-meter sprint to the grueling 50-kilometer race.

The sport features two primary techniques: the classic style, with skiers racing in parallel tracks, and the faster freestyle skating method. The demanding skiathlon blends both styles over a 20-kilometer course, with athletes switching skis mid-race.

Who to watch

Norway has long dominated cross-country skiing, and its powerhouse team is once again led by Johannes Hoesflot Klaebo — already a legend at 29. The five-time Olympic champion, renowned for explosive climbs and all-around versatility, arrives in Italy chasing more medals.

On the women’s side, Diggins remains a standout as the most decorated U.S. cross-country skier in history. This will be her final competitive season. Federico Pellegrino — who will be one of Italy’s four flag bearers at the opening ceremony — is also in his final season. The 35-year-old world champion sprinter is seeking a long-awaited Olympic gold after silver-medal finishes at the past two Games.

Sweden’s Jonna Sundling is the one to beat in the women’s individual sprint, having won three consecutive world titles in the discipline as well as Olympic gold in 2022.

FILE – Italy’s Federico Pellegrino is seen in action during the 10km men’s mass start race of the Tour de Ski cross country in Val di Fiemme, Italy, Jan. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Alessandro Trovati, File)

Venues and dates

The 2026 Olympic venues are spread across the broccoli-shaped northern tip of Italy, with cross-country skiing held in Val di Fiemme, a valley in the heart of the Dolomites.

The Tesero Cross-Country Skiing Stadium, a regular host of elite competitions, will be familiar terrain for many athletes.

Events begin the day after the opening ceremony and conclude on the Games’ final day, starting with sprints and finishing with the women’s 50-kilometer mass start.

Memorable moments

Cross-country skiing has produced some of the Olympics’ most enduring moments.

FILE – Tour de Ski winner Norway’s Johannes Høsflot Klæbo, celebrates after the 10km men’s mass start Tour de Ski cross-country race in Val di Fiemme, Italy, Jan. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Alessandro Trovati, File)

In 2018, Jessie Diggins and Kikkan Randall delivered a dramatic photo-finish to win gold in the team sprint at the PyeongChang Winter Games. Their breakthrough ended the United States’ medal drought in the discipline and inspired a new generation of American skiers — many even copying Diggins’ trademark glitter makeup.

The Sarajevo Games in 1984 were electrified by 22-year-old Swede Gunde Svan, who became a winter sports icon by winning four medals, including two golds, across events from sprints to relays.

Fun facts

Snow sports — cross-country skiing in particular — owe much to the Norwegian military. Soldiers on skis held races as part of their training more than 200 years ago, helping shape the sport into formal competition. Norwegian dominance has continued ever since: cross-country great Marit Bjoergen retired in 2018 as the most decorated Winter Olympian, with 15 medals, including eight golds.

The physical demands of cross-country skiing are among the most extreme in sport. Top athletes often post some of the highest oxygen-uptake scores ever recorded, reflecting the extraordinary cardiovascular capacity needed to drive both arms and legs across varied terrain for hours.

AP Winter Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics

Dakota County faces a year of “hard conversations and tough choices” regarding its budget, according to the new board chair.

Laurie Halverson was elected Dakota County Board Chair on Jan. 6, 2026.

Dakota County Commissioner Laurie Halverson was elected by her fellow commissioners on Tuesday to serve as Board Chair for 2026.

“2026 is going to be a big year — it’s going to be a ‘buckle-up’ year,” Halverson said in a county news release. “It is a year that we’re going to ask everybody to do their very best, and I know they will.”

Halverson, who represents Mendota Heights, Mendota, Sunfish Lake, Lilydale and parts of Eagan, has served on the board since 2021. She succeeds Commissioner Mike Slavik as board chair.

In the coming year, the county plans to reopen West St. Paul’s renovated Wentworth Library, construct a new recycling facility in Lakeville and expand greenways in Mendota Heights and beyond, per the release.

The county also plans to administer elections, finish transportation projects and find ways to make social service resources more accessible for residents.

Last month the board passed a final 2026 budget of $528 million, with a 9.9% levy increase and warnings of similar tax hikes likely next year.

“It’s going to be a big year, but we’ve got a lot of expertise to bring to the table,” Halverson said in the release.

Commissioner Bill Droste, who represents Inver Grove Heights, Rosemount, Empire and parts of Eagan, will serve as board vice chair for 2026.

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By BRIAN MELLEY

Ski jumping is no fashion contest, but there will be nearly as much scrutiny on what jumpers wear at the Winter Olympics as the form of their flight and the distance they travel.

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A scandal from last year’s world championships in which the Norwegian team was caught doctoring their jumping suits to get a competitive edge has cast a shadow over the sport that will see new contests added this year at the Milan Cortina Games.

Norway’s Marius Lindvik, a gold medalist at the 2022 Beijing Games, was disqualified with a teammate at the world championships in March and suspended for three months after team leaders admitted tampering with their suits.

Lindvik, who was stripped of his second-place finish, and Johann Forfang said they weren’t aware of the alterations that stiffened the fabric to give them more lift to fly farther.

How it works

Ski jumping is one of six sports at the first Winter Olympics in 1924 and has featured ever since, evolving to add women’s events and seeing technology influence the development of technique, skis, bindings and clothing.

The sport dates to the 1800s in Norway, which has been the dominant nation in Olympic competition that now sees daredevils speeding up to nearly 60 mph (about 100 kph) down a steep ramp and launching themselves into the air to fly farther than the length of an American football field.

FILE – Nika Prevc, of Slovenia, soars through the air during her first round jump of the ski jumping women’s large hill individual competition at the Nordic World Ski Championships in Trondheim, Norway, March 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader, File)

Skiers are judged not just on distance, but also on their technique in flight and their landing style.

There are two jumps: a large hill and a shorter normal hill.

Women who began competing in 2014 on the normal hill will also compete this year in the bigger hill for the first time.

There is a team event for men and a mixed team event combining forces of men and women.

Who to watch

All eyes will be on the Norwegian team to see how they do in the aftermath of the scandal, though Lindvik and others were not among top contenders early in the World Cup season.

A story likely to capture attention is of two Slovenian siblings. Nika Prevc won the world championships on both hills last year and brother, Domen Prevc, won on the large hill. Their older brother, Peter Prevc, won four Olympic medals in the sport before retiring.

Venues and dates

FILE – Domen Prevc, of Slovenia, soars through the air during his qualification jump at the first stage of the Four Hills ski jumping tournament in Oberstdorf, Germany, Dec. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader, File)

Competition at the Predazzo Olympic Ski Jumping Hill in Val di Fiemme begins Feb. 7 with the women’s normal hill contest and concludes Feb. 16 with the men’s super team event.

The scenic setting in the heart of the Dolomites — a UNESCO World Heritage Site — is dubbed the Valley of Harmony for the acoustic properties of the spruce trees that violin maker Antonio Stradivari and other luthiers have used to craft high-quality musical instruments.

Memorable moments

While ski jumping is most popular in northern Europe most sport fans and casual observers would have better luck at naming a last-place finisher than a ski jumping champ. Michael “Eddie the Eagle” Edwards stole the show at the 1988 Calgary Games as the first British athlete to compete in Olympic ski jumping. He finished at the bottom but succeeded in winning the hearts of fans for his determination to compete — a feat portrayed in a 2016 feature film starring Taron Egerton as Eddie and Hugh Jackman as his coach.

Fun facts

The standard jumping technique to splay skis in a V-formation was once ridiculed. Jan Boklöv of Sweden lost valuable style points in the mid-1980s until it became clear he was flying farther than his foes. Judging standards were later changed as it became widely adopted and Boklöv went on to capture the overall World Cup title in 1989.

Host country Italy has never won an Olympic medal in ski jumping.

AP Olympics coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics

A bankruptcy judge denied a motion from the Mamdani administration to delay an auction of 5,000 rent stabilized units tenants hoped to preserve, in an early blow to the mayor’s efforts on housing.

Mayor Mamdani touring a Pinnacle building with tenants last week. (Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)

In an early blow to Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s actions on housing, a federal bankruptcy judge on Thursday denied a motion from the administration to put off the sale of 5,000 rent stabilized apartments.

Tenants who live in the 90-building portfolio have been rallying against their landlord, Pinnacle Group, which has failed to make necessary repairs and has over half a million dollars in mortgage debt.

The new mayor asked the judge to delay the sale to give the city time to put together a solution that would preserve the affordable housing. Intervening in the bankruptcy auction was one of Mamdani’s first actions as mayor. 

The judge, David Jones, was unmoved by the city’s argument, writing, “having considered the City’s written application and heard and considered the statements of all parties that appeared at the hearing, the Court denied the City’s extension request.”

Tenants were critical of Pinnacle, saying it over-leveraged its properties in hopes of removing units from rent stabilization. Landlords say New York’s 2019’s rent laws, which made it more difficult for owners to deregulate or raise rents on stabilized units, have jeopardized the financial viability of completely rent stabilized buildings like those Pinnacle owns.

The denial puts a $451 million auction bid from Summit Properties in pole position to acquire the portfolio. Pinnacle’s lawyer told Gothamist the sale would bring financial stability to the portfolio.

But tenants aren’t giving up just yet. They rallied outside Summit Properties’ office Thursday afternoon, calling on the judge to stop the sale. 

“We’re asking the judge if they stand for 10,000 rent stabilized tenants…or if they respond to two brother slumlords,” said Emma Rehac, a Pinnacle tenant in Washington Heights, at Thursday’s rally.

A recent Biznow report showed that the new bidder, Summit Properties, has ties to Jonathan Weiner, brother of Pinnacle head Joel Weiner. Summit owner David Tennenbaum appeared on the city’s worst landlord list in 2024. 

“We have organized Pinnacle tenants from all across New York to stop our 5,000-plus rent stabilized homes from being sold from one slumlord to another. Both our current slumlord, Pinnacle Group, and our new buyer, Summit properties, have more than 5,000 open violations against them,” said Rehac.

Here’s what else happened in housing—

ICYMI, from City Limits: 

Here’s everything new Mayor Mamdani did on housing during his first days in office.

The new administration is also looking to phase out the use of emergency migrant shelters that don’t comply with city rules around capacity and other standards—exemptions officials say are no longer needed now that the number of newly arrived immigrants entering the shelter system has slowed.  

At the end of last year, the Department of City Planning reassigned its central design team, a move critics say will deprioritize livability as the city pledges to build more housing.

In other City Planning news: Dan Garodnick, the agency’s director for the last four years who spearheaded the “City of Yes” zoning plan, is stepping down. 

At NYCHA’s Surfside Gardens in Coney Island, slow repairs leave seniors and residents with disabilities waiting years as broken elevators, intercoms, playgrounds, and trash compactors disrupt daily life.

ICYMI, from other local newsrooms: 

A new audit from the state comptroller’s office on the city’s main rental assistance program, CityFHEPS, highlights a number of inefficiencies and makes suggestions for how the city could save on costs, Gothamist reports. 

Cea Weaver, Mamdani’s new head of the Office to Protect Tenants, sat down with NY1’s Errol Louis to talk about the role, as well as the furor over her old social media posts about homeownership.  

New York City is taking notes on new housing development from nearby Jersey City, the New York Times reports. 

Co-op owners at Carnegie House, described as the only affordable building on Manhattan’s “Billionaire’s Row,” are facing a 450 percent ground-rent hike, according to the New York Post. 

To reach the reporter behind this story, contact Patrick@citylimits.org. To reach the editor, contact Jeanmarie@citylimits.org

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The post Judge Blocks Mamdani’s Bid to Delay Pinnacle Sale, and What Else Happened in Housing This Week appeared first on City Limits.