The Milano Cortina Winter Games ended on Sunday night as the Olympics always do: in light, spectacle and speeches about unity. In Verona, the Olympic flag passed to the French Alps and the twin flames were extinguished. But unofficially, at least, a flame also flickered 6,000 miles west.
If these Games felt political, just wait until Los Angeles a little more than two years from now.
The Olympic movement is resurgent in the United States – not a moment too soon for NBC, which paid $7.75bn for the rights through 2032 – but the world’s biggest sporting event returns to a country trapped in a neverending cycle that rarely keeps politics offstage. And over the past two weeks in Italy, American athletes demonstrated that there is more than one way to carry a flag.
There were examples of quiet patriotism everywhere. Take Alysa Liu. Her father left China after protesting against the Communist government in the wake of the Tiananmen Square massacre, rebuilt his life in California and raised a daughter who walked away from skating before returning on her own terms. Liu spoke more about gratitude than redemption during her way to America’s first gold in women’s figure skating in 24 years. In doing so, she modeled a form of patriotism that celebrates opportunity without weaponizing it.
That tone was echoed elsewhere. While a country back home roiled over ICE’s actions in Minnesota and the Trump administration’s attacks on immigrants, Chloe Kim articulated something subtler still: that loving your country can include disagreeing with it. Patriotism, she suggested, is not blind allegiance but civic engagement. Established stars like Mikaela Shiffrin and Jessie Diggins repeated the same sentiment in so many words. Dissent is not disloyalty. In the American tradition, it may be a proof of concept.
Utah governor Spencer Cox – whose state will stage the 2034 Winter Games and who was in Milan as part of the host delegation – captured the tension when asked at a press conference whether Milano Cortina had become politicized.
“We love our athletes, and we are grateful for them,” said Cox, who is more socially moderate than many of his Republican colleagues. “We recognize there are lots of divisions in our country, and around the world. I love that we live in a country where people get to speak their minds. It is true of athletes, governments, presidents and every individual. We care about unity.”
Then came the plea: stop making athletes carry the weight of politics.
“I hate the questions [the media] ask the athletes,” he said. “These are kids out there competing. I think you should be asking them about their sports. Let the politicians take care of politics.”
That’s a nice thought, but the boundaries are increasingly difficult to defend when only one side respects them. Even as athletes modeled restraint and joy, Donald Trump has continued to leverage sport as an extension of the culture wars. There was his much-publicized back-and-forth with US freeskier Hunter Hess, whose rather anodyne remarks prompted an asymmetrical response. Then on Monday, one day after the US men’s hockey team’s thrilling win over Canada in the gold medal game, Trump posted an AI-generated video depicting himself in a USA jersey punching a Canadian opponent before scoring a goal. Not exactly what Baron Pierre de Coubertin had in mind when he devised the modern Games.
The contrast was instructive. The athletes at the Winter Olympics competed like rivals and interacted like global neighbors. The US political class – on both sides – seems intent on collapsing that distinction at seemingly every opportunity. And the tension will only intensify over the next 29 months.
Assuming Trump is still in office on 14 July 2028 when the LA Games open – exactly one month after his 82nd birthday and in the thick of a presidential campaign that he may or may not be running in – he will stand before a global audience as a central figure in the proceedings. And he will do so in California, in a political environment far less friendly than many domestic sporting venues he has appeared in over the past decade – and potentially in the backyard of the Democratic presidential candidate. It’s not hard to imagine Trump using the Olympics as a stage to ramp up whatever issues he wants to push.
Milan offered a sneak peek of how that activity will affect athletes in 2028. In Italy, they constantly fielded questions about America’s political climate. Some navigated online abuse amplified by Olympic visibility. And the co-opting came from both sides of the spectrum, with Kamala Harris’s rebranded gen-Z rapid response account claiming Liu as “woke”. The US will be watching too. NBC averaged 24m viewers across its prime afternoon and primetime windows through Friday, a 94% jump from Beijing 2022 and its most-watched Winter Games in 12 years. Streaming exploded too, with 14.8bn minutes viewed in the US, more than double all previous Winter Games combined. Milan built directly on the rebound that began in Paris and the network appears to be well-positioned for the next eight years.
Amid that background, it’s worth remembering that, for the most part, the enduring images of Milano Cortina will be the simpler ones: teammates embracing, rivals congratulating one another, a mother signing “Mommy won” to her deaf children after finally claiming gold.
Team USA left Italy with 33 medals and 12 golds, their most Winter Olympic titles ever. But the deeper takeaway was tonal rather than numerical. In Milan, athletes showed that patriotism can be generous, confident and unforced. In Los Angeles, that definition will be tested on the biggest, loudest stage sport can offer.
