World-beaters, a teen prodigy and 'Bobsled Bree': Australia's top medal hopes at Milano-Cortina Olympics
Australia's leading medal contenders
There is a confident feeling among Australia's team for the Milano-Cortina Games that a record-breaking medal haul is coming.
Australia secured its biggest swag of Winter Olympic medals at the last Games, where four medals were won in Beijing in 2022.
The team for Milano-Cortina 2026 has combined for 26 medals across the ongoing World Cup season.
Those 26 medals have been won by 11 athletes across seven disciplines.
So, who are Australia's top medal shots in Italy?
Scotty James
Age: 31
Event: Men's halfpipe
Games: 5 (Vancouver 2010, Sochi 2014, PyeongChang 2018, Beijing 2022, Milano-Cortina 2026)
Grew up: Warrandyte, Victoria
Scotty James
He is a superstar of the snowboarding world.
The halfpipe gun has won World Cup gold medals, world championship gold medals, crystal globes and X Games titles.
In Aspen in his final tournament before the Milano-Cortina Games, he secured his fifth consecutive X Games gold medal and the eighth of his career. The only other snowboarder in history with eight X Games gold medals is American legend Shaun White, the GOAT (greatest of all time) of men's snowboarding.
But until this point in James' sparkling career, one title has eluded him.
Olympic gold.
He picked up bronze in PyeongChang at the 2018 Olympics, and silver in Beijing in 2022.
Can he complete the set in Italy?
Valentino Guseli
Age: 20
Event: Men's halfpipe
Games: 2 (Beijing 2022, Milano-Cortina 2026)
Grew up: Dalmeny, NSW
Valentino Guseli
Valentino Guseli is a snowboarding prodigy.
At the age of 11, he became the youngest snowboarder in history to perform a double backflip.
At 15, he broke a big air world record belonging to Shaun White, soaring 7.3 metres on his World Cup debut to shatter a mark set by the three-time Olympic gold medallist.
At 17, he became the first athlete to win big air, slopestyle and halfpipe World Cup medals in a single season, en route to clinching his maiden crystal globe.
Guseli won't compete in the big air or slopestyle events at the Games — his remarkable bid to qualify in all three disciplines fell short — but he is ready to rip in the halfpipe.
Guseli's 2024-25 northern hemisphere season was ruined by an ACL rupture but he's produced some promising results in the months leading up to the Milano-Cortina Games.
Among them was a World Cup victory in the halfpipe in Calgary, Canada in January.
He finished sixth in the halfpipe event at the 2022 Olympics.
Bree Walker (centre)
Age: 33
Event: Women's monobob, two-woman bobsleigh
Games: 2 (Beijing 2022, Milano-Cortina 2026)
Grew up: Melbourne
Bree Walker
Bobsleigh star Bree Walker, perhaps best known as "Bobsled Bree", heads into the Milano-Cortina Games on the back of three World Cup triumphs in the monobob this season.
In Lillehammer in December, the former hurdler claimed her third consecutive World Cup gold medal on the Norwegian track.
Her most recent World Cup win came in St Moritz, Switzerland in January, on the track that hosted the 1928 and 1948 Olympic bobsleigh events.
Walker is sitting second in this season's monobob World Cup standings.
She finished fifth in the monobob at the 2022 Olympics.
Danielle Scott
Age: 35
Event: Women's aerial skiing
Games: 4 (Sochi 2014, PyeongChang 2018, Beijing 2022, Milano-Cortina 2026)
Grew up: Sydney
Danielle Scott
The aerial skiing veteran has secured World Cup wins, world championship medals and crystal globes.
In Italy this month, she will go in search of a breakthrough Olympic medal.
Scott is honing in on the Games on the back of an excellent World Cup campaign at Lake Placid in the US in January, where she grabbed a gold and a bronze.
She finished ninth at the 2014 Olympics, 12th at the 2018 Games and 10th at the 2022 Olympics.
Laura Peel
Age: 36
Event: Women's aerial skiing
Games: 4 (Sochi 2014, PyeongChang 2018, Beijing 2022, Milano-Cortina 2026)
Grew up: Canberra
