I was talking to my aunt about what she made of the action in Milano-Cortina, and she mentioned a moment that stood out to her. It wasn’t with a Black athlete currently competing but American figure skater Ilia Malinin. 

The quad axel jump is Malinin’s specialty – he’s nicknamed the “quad god” – and arrived in Italy as the gold-medal favourite for the men’s single event. But during his free skate routine, he made several mistakes, fell twice, and finished eighth. 

“That’s what he gets/Serves him right for trying to erase/overwrite Surya Bonaly’s memory; In Black History Month no less,” my aunt joked. 

I don’t know much about figure skating, but from what I gather, Malinin is a big deal. I’ve seen him described as a “sensation” and a “phenom.” He became the first person to legally land a backflip on one skate, a Bonaly Flip, at the Olympics this year. The move is another of Malinin’s signatures. (The first-ever Olympic backflip was by Terry Kubicka in 1976, who landed on two skates.)

The U.S. won gold in the team event thanks in no small part to the dramatic backflip in Malinin’s routine. The Bonaly flip is named after trailblazing French skater Surya Bonaly, who first pulled off the one skate backflip on the Olympic stage when it was still banned in 1998. She did it during the final skate of her Olympic career in what some saw as an act of defiance and pride.

Some people say there’s a hint of racism in the way that Malinin gets showered with praise for his performance, but Bonaly was criticized for doing the same thing. Some worry that Malinin’s feat could eclipse Bonaly’s. It certainly wouldn’t be the only time a white person got more credit or reward for something a Black person did first. 

Let me be clear, I am not saying Malinin doesn’t deserve his plaudits or taking pleasure in the fact that he fell. Nor am I suggesting that his intention in performing Bonaly backflips is a deliberate attempt to erase Bonaly’s accomplishment. But it did make me think about Black representation in winter sports and the Olympics and the importance of legacy and pride.

Black Faces in Cold, Unfamiliar Places

It’s easy to overlook Black people’s achievements in a space like winter sports, where representation is limited. So, it’s important to highlight Black athletes' success at the Winter Olympics. I learned that the Milano-Cortina Games were historic for Black people on several fronts.

Winston Tang from Guinea-Bissau and Nathan Tchibozo from Benin became their countries' first athletes to compete in the Winter Olympics. Madagascar's Mialitiana Clerc set a record as the first African female to compete at the Winter Games three times. And South Africa's five-person squad is the largest it’s sent to a Winter Olympics. 

In total, 14 athletes from eight African countries competed in Italy in various skiing events and skeleton. It’s only the second time that eight African nations have been represented at the Winter Olympics. There were also Black athletes from Switzerland, the U.K., Haiti, Jamaica, Trinidad, Canada and the United States. 

Stevenson Savart became the first man to represent Haiti in cross-country skiing at the Winter Games. He finished 64th, but fans cheered him on, and he took a bow at the end of the race.

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Six of the seven Jamaican athletes competing in the 2026 Games were bobsledders. Both the 2-man and 4-man teams narrowly missed out on the final heat, as did Mica Moore in the women’s monobob event.

They didn’t capture any medals, but if there was a popularity contest at the Games, the Jamaicans would have won it. They were regularly stopped in the streets for autographs, made headlines for hosting Snoop Dogg, who enjoyed their cooking, and were featured in viral commercials with brands like Airbnb and Fiat. 

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Although it was painful to watch Canada lose the first of two gold-medal hockey games in overtime to our arch-rivals, the U.S., there was a silver lining to take away after the game. Three Black players took to the ice in the women’s final: Canadians Sarah Nurse and Sophie Jaques, plus Laila Edwards from Ohio. 

The showdown was only the second time three Black women played in the same hockey game at the Olympics. The first was when the two teams met before the knockout round on Feb 10.

Edwards is the first Black woman to compete for a U.S. Olympic hockey team. She finished the tournament with 6 assists, the joint-second most, including a crucial helper in the final that led to the equalizer. Nurse holds the record for most assists registered at a single tournament with 13 from Beijing in 2022.

American bobsledder Elana Meyers Taylor extended her record as the most-decorated Black athlete in Winter Olympics history in Italy. She won gold in the momobob event, finishing 0.04 seconds ahead of the runner-up. It was the closest women’s bobsleigh finish in Olympic history. 

Meyers Taylor now owns more Olympic medals than any female bobsledder and, at 41, is the oldest Winter Olympics gold medalist in an individual event.

Erin Jackson made history as the first Black woman to win a Winter Olympic individual speed skating gold in over a decade. She was also the first Black woman to be chosen as the U.S. flag bearer at a Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony. An honour that comes with even more distinction and importance because she was voted in by her 231 peers from what was America’s most racially diverse Winter Olympic team.

The Games are inherently political, despite the Olympic Committees’ constant efforts to stamp it out. The athletes that a country’s Olympic committee chooses as flag bearers are asked to represent their country on the world stage to an even more explicit degree than they already are. It doesn’t get much more symbolic than that.

Instead of focusing on the “why did it take so long for this to happen” part, it is a positive signal that, despite the hateful rhetoric disseminated from the White House these days that has tarnished America’s brand, Jackson’s role as flagbearer is a reminder that not everyone’s on board and that diversity and inclusion still matter.

That’s important because, aside from the high costs associated with playing winter sports and the fact that they don’t tend to be the popular sports in countries where a lot of Black people live, the lack of representation can be equally off-putting.

Hopefully, there’ll be more Black athletes competing at future Winter Olympics in even more sports. American Mystique Ro and Nicole Burger from South Africa represented their countries in skeleton.

You know, the sport where people race down an ice hill, lying on a thin metal sheet with blades and no other steering apparatus but your toes, headfirst. Our ancestors would balk at some Black people’s choice to subject themselves to the ice and snow, but they fought for our right to make wild decisions like that. And that is a reason to celebrate.