GENEVA (AP) — Olympic winter sports must be played on snow and ice, according to the Olympic Charter.
But could a muddy field of play get its chance at a future Winter Games, even as soon as in the French Alps in 2030 or Salt Lake City in 2034?
How about parquet in an indoor hall? Snow volleyball is ready and waiting.
Those and other sports on the far fringes of joining the Summer Games, such as flying disk, see a possible path to the less densely packed Winter Games schedule, even as winter sports federations push back.
There are 116 medal events at the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics compared to more than 350 at the 2028 Summer Games in Los Angeles.
The charter is the code of rules and principles to guide how the IOC and Olympic Games are run.
Article 6.2 could not be clearer: “Only those sports which are practiced on snow or ice are considered as winter sports.”
That legal clarity is now up for review.
On taking office in June as IOC president, Kirsty Coventry listened to her fellow IOC members and started “Fit For The Future,” setting up four working groups including one focused on the program of Olympic sports in the Summer and Winter Games.
It pledged to look at “identifying ways for sports to be added to or removed from the program through a clear and transparent process. It will also consider the suggestion that traditional summer or winter sports could cross over.”
Cross-country running and cyclocross, two gloriously muddy events, have been suggested for the 2030 Winter Games by the influential federations for track and field and cycling, led by Sebastian Coe and David Lappartient, respectively. Both were candidates for IOC president in the election that Coventry won last year.
Coe’s enthusiasm for cross-country running is largely about putting African athletes on center stage with a rare chance to win a medal at the Winter Games, which typically lack diversity.
Lappartient was key to assembling the late-developing bid for the 2030 Olympics in the French Alps that now wants to showcase cross-country running and cyclocross at the same venue. One proposed location is La Planche des Belles Filles, known to cycling fans as a popular climb in recent editions of the Tour de France.
Four-time Tour winner Tadej Pogačar and one of his great rivals Mathieu van der Poel, also a seven-time cyclocross world champion, have been recruited to the campaign to help persuade the IOC.
Snow volleyball was played on an exhibition court for IOC voters to see at the Pyeongchang Winter Games in South Korea in 2018.
“If the Olympic movement believes that snow volleyball can help promote the Winter Games I would say: ‘Why not?’” International Volleyball Federation president Fabio Azevedo said. “It has a special ball for snow, it’s amazing."
Snow volleyball also could give African teams and Azevedo’s native Brazil a medal chance in winter, because the technical skills for beach volleyball transfer easily to playing on snow, he said.
The packed Summer Games program has found space for surfing, sports climbing, breakdance and lacrosse, but there is a long line of sports waiting.
Leaders of some of those sports were recently in the IOC's home city Lausanne, Switzerland, for an annual conference where they could meet and mix with Olympic officials to learn about the scope and details of the program review.
“It’s really adaptable, whether it’s on a basketball court or a larger field house,” World Flying Disc Federation president Robert Rauch said when asked if his sport could meet a possible Winter Games need.
One problem with Winter Games expansion is that established snow and ice sports are not keen.
In November, the Winter Olympic Federations said “such an approach would dilute the brand, heritage, and identity that make the Olympic Winter Games unique.” The group represents sports including skiing, skating, biathlon, curling, luge, bobsled and skeleton.
The push for cross-country running and cyclocross was questioned by the American secretary general of the International Biathlon Union, Max Cobb.
“If they were super popular sports they would already be in the Summer Games, and they’re not,” Cobb said.
Amending the Olympic Charter can be done at the members’ annual meeting known as the IOC Session, though not at the eve-of-games gathering in Milan.
In the French Alps in early December, IOC vice president Pierre-Olivier Beckers signaled a longer timescale to finalizing the sports program for 2030, likely at an executive board meeting in June.
“We need further study on the proposals for new sports," he said. "We will only make a decision after Milan Cortina.”
AP Winter Olympics at https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics
FILE - Olympic rings are displayed in the snow at the Stelvio Ski Center, venue for the alpine ski and ski mountaineering disciplines at the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Olympics in Bormio, Italy, Jan. 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno, File)
IOC President Kirsty Coventry speaks to volunteers, ahead of the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Thursday, Jan. 29, 2026. (Daniele Mascolo/Pool Photo via AP)
PITTSBURGH (AP) — Sidney Crosby raised his eyes to the videoboard, and all the memories came flooding back, accompanied by tears that the Pittsburgh Penguins captain made no effort to wipe away.
Spend your life doing something, and things get blurry. It wasn't until Crosby watched a tribute to the 2016 Penguins team that won the franchise's fourth Stanley Cup before Saturday's 6-5 win over the New York Rangers that some of the moments he'd thought were lost to time recrystallized in high definition.
Nick Bonino's overtime winner over Washington in Game 6 of the Eastern Conference finals. Bryan Rust's go-ahead goal in Game 7 of the conference finals against Tampa Bay. Kris Letang's Cup-clinching marker — off a feed from Crosby — in Game 6 against San Jose.
Standing near center ice next to Letang (in a boot to protect the fractured left foot he sustained on Thursday against Chicago) and Evgeni Malkin, with so many familiar faces stretched 10 deep in both directions, the usually reserved 38-year-old Crosby felt a twinge he figured might come and leaned into it.
“I love the experiences and the memories that I have,” Crosby said. "That’s how it comes out. You don’t see those moments all the time. It’s not like I watch those on YouTube. So when you see them, they tend to hit you a little harder the older you get.”
Many of those Crosby skated alongside a decade ago have moved on to the next chapter of their lives. Bonino is now on staff for first-year Penguins coach Dan Muse. Defenseman Trevor Daley is a special assistant to general manager Kyle Dubas. Goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury recently retired. Kunitz is a player development advisor with the Chicago Blackhawks.
The group as a whole was going nowhere in late 2015 when then-head coach Mike Johnston was fired and replaced by Mike Sullivan. Over the next six months, Sullivan and then-general manager Jim Rutherford (now the president of the Vancouver Canucks) turned an underachieving group into champions. They did it again the following year, becoming the first franchise in nearly two decades to go back-to-back.
In Crosby's head, it doesn't seem like a long time ago. As a professional athlete, it's an eternity. The 2016 and 2017 teams cemented Crosby's status as the greatest player of his generation.
That kind of success has been hard to come by of late. The Penguins, a postseason fixture from 2007-22, haven't won a playoff series since 2018. And while Crosby remains a force — he recently surpassed franchise icon, Hall of Famer and minority owner Mario Lemieux as the team's all-time scoring leader and is on his way to extending his NHL record of averaging at least a point a game to 21 years and counting — he's also become keenly aware of just how fleeting the kind of chemistry the 2016 club can be.
“I love that group,” Crosby said. “I love playing.”
He loves winning even more, something the current crop of Penguins is doing at a rate that has them among the biggest surprises in the league as the Olympic break looms.
Pittsburgh's ‘harder-than-it-had-to-be’ win over the Rangers — now coached by Sullivan, who received one of the loudest ovations seven months after trading Pittsburgh for New York — moved the Penguins into second place alone in the Metropolitan Division.
Their 13th victory in 17 games since Dec. 27 came the way a lot of them have come over the last three-plus months: with contributions from up and down the lineup. Anthony Mantha, working on the third line, scored twice. Noel Acciari, a fourth-line fixture, scored a pair too. Rookie Ben Kindel — all of 18 — added a late empty netter to avoid what might have been a stunning collapse after the Penguins flirted with letting a four-goal lead in the third period slip away.
The team that has struggled to defend during their three-year playoff absence held the Rangers without a shot on goal for 21 minutes at one point. And when New York drew within one with 10 seconds to go and then managed to get a faceoff in the Pittsburgh zone with 3.6 seconds left, Acciari won the draw and steered the puck out of danger.
The heady play let goaltender Stuart Skinner and the rest of the Penguins exhale on a night Skinner — a Stanley Cup runner-up with Edmonton each of the last two seasons before being acquired by the Penguins in December — is well-versed on the thin line between a great season and a historic one.
“Every time you go to the Stanley Cup finals, especially for the teams that win, the stories that you have, the camaraderie, you know you bled for each other throughout that year,” Skinner said as he watched Lemieux and Crosby share a quiet moment a few stalls away. "So I’m sure it’s really cool for these guys to get back together and it’s really cool that I’m in the same dressing room as some of the Stanley Cup champions.”
There's a long way to go before the current Penguins can start thinking of joining that kind of company. Yet Crosby is encouraged. He knows better than most the DNA required for a team to raise the Cup in late spring. Pittsburgh is hardly there yet, but for the first time in what seems like a long time, it doesn't feel completely out of reach.
“I think everyone’s contributing, that’s what you need to win,” he said. “And you have to win different ways and you look all through our lineup, everybody’s been chipping in big ways ... I think if you go through those things and you have consistency in all those areas, you give yourself a chance.”
AP NHL: https://apnews.com/hub/nhl
Pittsburgh Penguins' Sidney Crosby (87) leaps over New York Rangers' Braden Schneider (4) during the first period of an NHL hockey game in Pittsburgh, Saturday, Jan. 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
Pittsburgh Penguins' Anthony Mantha, center, celebrates in the second period with Evgeni Malkin, left, and Sidney Crosby, right, after his second goal of an NHL hockey game against the New York Rangers in Pittsburgh, Saturday, Jan. 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
Members of the 2016 Stanley Cup Champion Pittsburgh Penguins are honored before an NHL hockey game against the New York Rangers in Pittsburgh, Saturday, Jan. 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
Members of the 2016 Stanley Cup Champion Pittsburgh Penguins, Sidney Crosby, left, Evgeni Malkin, center, and Kris Letang take part in a celebration of the 10th anniversary before an NHL hockey game against the New York Rangers in Pittsburgh, Saturday, Jan. 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
