TThe Milano Cortina Winter Games ended on Sunday evening as the Olympic Games always do: in lights, spectacle and speeches about unity. In Verona, the Olympic flag was raised to the French Alps and the twin flames were extinguished. But at least unofficially there was also a flame flickering 6,000 miles west.
If these Games felt political, just wait until Los Angeles, just over two years away.
The Olympic movement is resurgent in the United States — not a moment too soon for NBC, which paid $7.75 billion for the rights through 2032 — but the world’s biggest sporting event is returning to a country trapped in an endless cycle that rarely keeps politics off the stage. And over the past two weeks, American athletes in Italy have 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 aftermath 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 on her path 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 heard elsewhere. As a country back home fretted over ICE’s actions in Minnesota and the Trump administration’s attacks on immigrants, Chloe Kim expressed something more subtle: that loving your country can also mean disagreeing with it. Patriotism, she stated, is not blind loyalty, but civic engagement. Established stars like Mikaela Shiffrin and Jessie Diggins echoed the same sentiment in so many words. Dissent is not disloyalty. In the American tradition it can be a proof of concept.
Utah Governor Spencer Cox – whose state will host the 2034 Winter Games and who was in Milan as part of the hosting delegation – picked up the heat when asked at a news 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 that there are many divisions in our country and around the world. I think it’s great that we live in a country where people can express their opinions. That goes for athletes, governments, presidents and every individual. We care about unity.”
Then came the plea: stop letting athletes carry the weight of politics.
“I hate the questions [the media] Just ask the athletes,” he said. “These are kids competing. I think you should ask them about their sport. Let the politicians take care of the politics.”
That’s a nice thought, but the borders become increasingly difficult to defend if only one party respects them. Even as athletes exemplified restraint and joy, Donald Trump has continued to use sports as an extension of the culture wars. There was his much-publicized back-and-forth with American freeskier Hunter Hess, whose rather silly comments provoked an asymmetrical response. Then, on Monday, a day after the U.S. men’s hockey team’s thrilling victory over Canada in the gold medal game, Trump posted an AI-generated video in which he depicts himself in an American shirt and punching a Canadian opponent before scoring a goal. Not exactly what Baron Pierre de Coubertin had in mind when he conceived the modern Games.
The contrast was instructive. The athletes at the Winter Olympics competed as rivals and interacted as global neighbors. The American political class – on both sides – seems intent on breaking down that distinction at seemingly every opportunity. And the tension will only increase over the next 29 months.
Assuming Trump is still in office when the LA Games open on July 14, 2028 — exactly a month after his 82nd birthday and in the midst of a presidential campaign he may or may not be in — he will stand before a global audience as a central figure in the proceedings. And he’ll do it in California, in a political environment far less friendly than many of the domestic sporting venues he’s performed in over the past decade — and possibly in the Democratic presidential candidate’s backyard. It’s not hard to imagine Trump using the Olympics as a stage to advance the issues he wants to raise.
Milan gave a preview of the impact this activity will have on athletes in 2028. In Italy they constantly asked questions about the political climate in America. Some suffered online abuse, amplified by Olympic visibility. And the co-optation came from both ends of the spectrum, with Kamala Harris’ rebranded gen-Z rapid response account Claiming Liu as “woke”. The US will also be watching. NBC averaged 24 million viewers during the key afternoon and primetime windows through Friday, a 94% increase from Beijing 2022 and the most-watched Winter Games in 12 years. Streaming services also exploded, with 14.8 billion viewing minutes in the US, more than double all previous Winter Games combined. Milan built directly on the recovery that started in Paris and the network appears well positioned for the next eight years.
Against that backdrop, it’s worth remembering that Milano Cortina’s lasting images will be, for the most part, simpler: teammates hugging, rivals congratulating each other, a mother signing “Mama won” for her deaf children after finally claiming gold.
Team USA left Italy with 33 medals and 12 gold medals, their most ever Winter Olympic titles. But the deeper conclusion was tonal rather than numerical. In Milan, athletes showed that patriotism can be generous, confident and casual. In Los Angeles, that definition is tested on the biggest, loudest stage sport has to offer.
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