The Three Craziest Stories From The 2026 Winter Olympics
- 3 hours ago
- 2 min read
The Milano Cortina games had their fair share of funny and bizarre moments that will live long in the memory.
For the Italians, the excitement and the honour of hosting the Winter Olympics was palpable, but the opening ceremony's Italian host on state TV, a certain Paolo Petrecca, got proceedings off to an embarrassing start with numerous, some would say hilarious, gaffes.
These included getting the name of the stadium he was standing in wrong, mistaking an Italian actress for Mariah Carey, incorrectly identifying International Olympic Committee President Kirsty Coventry as the daughter of Italian President, and failing to recognize Italy’s male and female world champion volleyball teams. And, when the Games actually started, the next two weeks produced some fantastic sporting achievements and more remarkable occurrences. Here are three of OGN's favourite craziest moments...
Surprise Star: Every Olympics produces at least one breakout star. Few of them, however, can bark. Or have four legs. But that didn't stop Nazgul, a two-year-old Czechoslovakian wolfdog who lives nearby, bursting on to the course during the women’s cross-country team sprint qualifier, joining the dash for the line behind Croatia’s Tena Hadzic, though his time did not count because he is male. And a dog.
Oversharing, Big Time: After winning bronze in the men’s 20km biathlon for his first individual Olympic medal, the Norwegian biathlete Sturla Holm Lægreid publicly admitting he’d two-timed his girlfriend three months earlier and called it “my biggest mistake” in an overshare for the ages carried live by national broadcaster NRK.
Penile Enhancement: There was no bigger story in the early stages of the Milano Cortina Games than “Penisgate”, the truly bizarre scandal that alleged ski jumpers, seeking marginal aerodynamic gains after tighter suit regulations, had resorted to injecting hyaluronic acid into their members to inflate 3D body measurements and secure looser suits with the goal of increasing drag. While the New York Times reported that a prominent plastic surgeon had claimed to have performed a procedure on a ski jumper to help them gain a competitive advantage, no definitive evidence has yet to be released by official governing bodies.
