Ready for skins on the slopes? Ski mountaineering is making its Olympic debut

BORMIO, Italy (AP) — The newest sport on the Olympic program goes by the name “skimo,” which is short for ski mountaineering. It's basic principles are just as condensed: race up the slope and back down as fast as possible.

There's so much more nuance to it, though, in a sport that traces its roots to the late 19th century. Ski mountaineering became fashionable before the arrival of mechanical lifts when the only way to go up was by climbing. And the best way to get back down was, of course, skiing.

“I love this sport because it takes me into the mountains and gives me an incredible sense of freedom,” explained Swiss athlete Marianne Fatton, who won the women's sprint event at the skimo world championships last March. “For me, the Olympic Games were really the cherry on top. I was already incredibly happy just to be able to compete at a high level.”

There are a range of skimo categories that blend a combination of endurance, technique, speed and Alpine ability. For the Milan Cortina Games, the focus will be on just the individual sprint and the mixed team relay. The men's and women's sprint competitions are Thursday in Bormio with the mixed relay two days later.

The individual sprint features a bracketed-style setup. The top finishers keep advancing until they reach the final, which will consist of six athletes. The course is composed of an ascent on skis with an assist of “skins,” which are pieces of fabric that allow athletes to hurry uphill but prevent sliding backward. After going through a diamond-shaped pattern, there's a running section in boots with the skis on their backs and then another uphill section on skis. From there, the athletes remove the skins and ski down.

A typical individual race lasts about three minutes. The total ascent is roughly 70 meters (76 yards) and the course length about 750 meters (0.48 miles).

In the mixed team race, each athlete completes two laps of the course, one after the other. The final takes about 30 minutes. The ascent on that course is about 135 meters (148 yards) and the length around 1,500 meters (0.9 miles).

Athletes can be called for penalties, ranging from unsportsmanlike conduct to technical errors to missing equipment. It can result in adding three to 30 seconds to their time or even a disqualification. For instance, incorrect storage of the skins is a 3-second addition while losing the skin before the finish line is a 30-second penalty. Failing to correctly fasten skis on a backpack is a 3-second infraction.

Skins are adhesive fabric strips that go on the bottom of the skis while racers traverse uphill. They allow grip to go up without sliding backward. They're taken off to go downhill and typically placed in the racing suit. The skis are narrow, lightweight and shorter than an Alpine model to help provide more control. They're designed for efficiency going up and down the mountain.

The boots are lightweight, too, since athletes will be running in them. They have a lever so athletes can toggle back and forth between walk and ski mode. The bindings are designed for quick transitions.

There will be 36 racers (18 males, 18 females) competing for the medals. Of the total, 35 are making their Olympics debuts; Phillip Bellingham of Australia competed in cross-country skiing at three Winter Games.

The International Ski Mountaineering Federation (ISMF) oversees the sport with approximately 56 national federations, ranging from Europe to the Americas to Asia to Oceania and to Africa. The sport has seen a 45% increase since it was approved for the Olympics in 2021. There are approximately 3 million ski mountaineers around the global, according to ISMF.

The sport has been proposed for the 2030 Winter Games in the French Alps.

It's so wide open. Among the female athletes to watch are Emily Harrop of France and Fatton. On the men's side, it's Oriol Cardona Coll of Spain, Thibault Anselmet of France and Jon Kistler of Switzerland. The U.S. has strong team in the mixed relay in Anna Gibson and Cameron Smith, who recently won a World Cup event.

The races are a mix between cross-country skiing, biathlon and ski-cross. The top athletes have the lung capacity of a cross-country racer and the skills of a downhill racer.

“It’s a fun mix,” explained Harrop, the sprint-race silver medalist at worlds.

No coasting on the downhills, either.

“In skimo, the effort is nearly constant,” Fatton explained. “You don’t just glide down. You have to stay fully engaged, skiing aggressively and as fast as possible. For me, the ideal skimo racer needs a very strong VO-2 max, excellent recovery ability, real power and a high tolerance for suffering.”

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

FILE - Athletes compete during the women's mixed relay race at the Ski Mountaineering World Cup event in Bormio, Italy, Feb. 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni, File)

FILE - Athletes compete during the men's sprint race at the Ski Mountaineering World Cup event in Bormio, Italy, Feb. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni, File)

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) — Bangladesh’ s new prime minister was sworn in on Tuesday after his party’s landslide win in last week’s parliamentary elections, the country’s first since the massive 2024 uprising. The vote was billed as key to Bangladesh’s future political landscape after years of intense rivalry and disputed polls.

Prime Minister Tarique Rahman, whose term will last the next five years, is the son of former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia and former President Ziaur Rahman. He is also Bangladesh’s first male prime minister in 35 years.

The country’s figurehead President Mohammed Shahabuddin administered the oath of office for Rahman. Dozens of Cabinet members and members of the new government were also being sworn in.

The Bangladesh Nationalist Party and its partners won 212 seats in the 350-memebr Parliament while an 11-party alliance led by the Jamaat-e-Islami party, the country’s largest Islamist party, won 77 seats to be the opposition.

In Bangladesh, voters elect 300 members of Parliament directly while the remaining 50 posts are reserved for women and distributed proportionately among the winning parties.

Rahman, 60, who returned to the country in December — after 17 years in self-exile in London and shortly before his mother’s death — has promised to work for democracy in Bangladesh, country of of 170 million people.

An interim government led by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus oversaw the election, largely peaceful and widely acceptable by international observers.

Rahman’s main rival Bangladesh Awami League party headed by former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina — who was ousted in the 2024 mass uprising — was banned from the race. The Yunus-led administration had also banned all activities of Hasina’s party, which had ruled the country for 15 years.

From her exile in India, where she has lived since Aug. 5, 2024, Hasina slammed the vote as unfair to her party, which still remains a major political force. At home, Hasina was sentenced to death on charges of crimes against humanity because of hundreds of deaths involving the uprising.

She denied the allegation and termed the court as a “kangaroo court.”

Bangladesh Nationalist Party Chairperson Tarique Rahman, second right, speaks at a press conference after his party won the national parliamentary election, in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Saturday, Feb. 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Mahmud Hossain Opu)

Bangladesh Nationalist Party Chairperson Tarique Rahman shows victory sign during a meeting with media after his party won the national parliamentary election, in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Saturday, Feb. 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Mahmud Hossain Opu)