Trail Runners Represent at Front of Olympic Skimo Mixed Relay
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On the afternoon of Saturday, February 21, the second-to-last day of the 2026 Milano-Cortina Olympics, ski mountaineering teams took to the slopes in the 2026 Olympic Games Ski Mountaineering Mixed Relay race in the sport’s debut at the Games. Among the 12 teams of two, the top four teams had trail runners competing, showing that the crossover between ski mountaineering (skimo) and trail running is real.
Racing under cloudy skies and on fast, hard-packed snow, Emily Harrop, who has experience in skyrunning, including a fifth-place finish at the 2021 La Skyrhune race and a win at the 2021 Tignes Trail, led Team France to a dominant gold medal alongside teammate Thibault Anselmet in 26:57.44. She won silver in the skimo individual sprint event just two days ago. Marianne Fatton of Team Switzerland — who won gold in the Olympic women’s sprint event and has top results in trail running, including a sixth place at the 2021 Marathon du Mont Blanc 42k and a win at the 2021 Swiss Canyon Trail 31k — led the Swiss to silver. Oriol Cardona, who has done plenty of skyrunning and mountain trail races — including placing sixth at the 2019 Zegama Marathon — before focusing on skimo starting in 2022, anchored Team Spain for a bronze medal after winning gold in the men’s sprint. Interestingly, Cardona is coached by Kilian Jornet, further showing that the two sports are really only one degree of separation apart.
And in what was undoubtedly the surprise performance of the event, Cam Smith and Anna Gibson of Team USA powered their way from a ninth-place seed to a fourth-place finish, just 17 seconds out of the medals. While the other teams have had years of experience racing together — Team France won the 2025 and 2023 International Ski Mountaineering Federation (ISMF) Mixed Relay World Championships and Team Spain won the 2024 ISMF Mixed Relay European Championships and were second at the 2025 ISMF World Championships — Smith and Gibson first raced together in at the 2025 ISMF Solitude World Cup this past December, an event they won to earn their ticket to the Olympics.
The Mixed Relay: An Individual Team Event
The mixed relay event took place two days after the individual men’s and women’s sprints and was held on a much longer course, favoring endurance specialists. All 24 of the athletes in the mixed relay also competed in the individual sprint races.
In the mixed relay, each team member completes two laps of the course, alternating between the laps — with the women opening the race and the men anchoring the final lap. Each lap has several segments, including skiing uphill with skins — which provide grip — attached to the skis, climbing stairs with the skis on the back, and descending after taking the skins off. The mixed relay course had a long ascent on skis, followed by a downhill. Then, racers returned to the individual sprint course for another uphill ski, ascent of the stairs, and uphill ski, before skiing down to the finish. At the bottom, skiers had to put their skins back on their skis before tagging their partner to go out on their lap. The transitions between each of the different modes of movement are critical and have to be done in specific areas.
Unlike the sprint events, which had three rounds — a preliminary, semi-final, and final — with six athletes each, the mixed relay had only one round with all 12 teams on the course at the same time.
The mixed relay is a relatively new event in the skimo world and was only recently added to the ISMF World Cup calendar in 2022, after it was announced that the format would be used at the 2026 Olympics. Harrop and Anselmet won the first mixed relay ISMF World Cup event in Val Thorens, France, in 2022.
The Olympic Mixed Relay Race
The women lined up for the mixed relay first, with the top six seeds, including Spain, Italy, Switzerland, and France, on the front line. Team USA started from the second row with their ninth-place seed. By the top of the first uphill ski, Harrop had moved well clear of the field with Ana Alonso of Spain and Fatton of Switzerland — the sprint bronze and gold medalists, respectively — chasing side by side. By the time Harrop finished her first lap in 7:06, she had a 9-second gap on her chasers. Team USA was in fifth. Anselmet of France held the team’s lead on his first lap and had the same 9-second gap on second-place Switzerland and a 13-second gap on Spain when he tagged Harrop to start her second lap. Smith had moved Team USA into fourth position at the end of his first lap.
On the women’s second lap, it became a battle between France and Switzerland for the gold, and Spain, Italy, and the U.S. for the bronze. Spain incurred a 3-second penalty after Alonso transitioned outside the correct area at the end of her second lap, and Team USA was briefly in third out on course for a segment. When the men went out for their final lap, France led Switzerland by 1.3 seconds, and the U.S., Italy, and Spain were all within a second of each other. In the end, France held on, Switzerland and Spain filled out the medals, and the U.S. finished ahead of Italy.
It was tight racing up until the very end, with gaps growing and shrinking unexpectedly throughout the event, making it a fascinating debut for skimo at the Olympic Games.
Other Trail Runners on Skis
Team Poland, which placed ninth, also had a trail runner, Iwona Januszyk, who won the 2025 Tatra Sky Marathon 15k and has placed well in other trail events across Poland.
Team Australia, made up of Lara Hamilton and Phillip Bellingham, finished 12th. Hamilton represented Australia and the 2025 World Mountain Running Championships Up and Down Race, won the 2023 Ultra-Trail Australia 20k, and has placed near the front of fields in events like the 2025 Vauban Mountain Trail VK and 2025 Broken Arrow Skyrace 23k. Bellingham, meanwhile, is a cross-country skier competing in his fourth and final Olympics.
Trail Runners Represent at Front of Olympic Skimo Mixed Relay by Eszter Horanyi.
