Winter Olympians Deserve Gold Medals, Not Just ‘Hottest Body’ Lists

When our greatest snow and ice athletes get treated like swimsuit models with skis, you have to wonder who the real amateurs are.

The 2026 Winter Olympics haven’t even lit the cauldron in Milan-Cortina, and we’re already turning the world’s best athletes into a human Pinterest board.

Instead of talking about history-making runs and brutal training schedules, we’re getting glossy rundowns of the “hottest Olympians” like we’re drafting a fantasy league for abs.

The Moment

In the run-up to Milan-Cortina 2026, a wave of coverage has zeroed in on which Winter Olympians are the “hottest” – not the fastest, strongest, or most decorated, but the best-looking.

The usual suspects are front and center: Mikaela Shiffrin, the most decorated alpine skier in history; Chloe Kim, already a two-time Olympic snowboarding champion; and Eileen Gu, China’s freestyle skiing superstar with two Olympic golds before age 20.

Throw in a chiseled British bobsledder and Dutch speed skater Jutta Leerdam – now extra “interesting” to some outlets because she dates YouTuber-turned-fighter Jake Paul – and suddenly the conversation is less about split times and more about cheekbones.

There’s also a heavy dose of relationship voyeurism: Kim’s romance with NFL star Myles Garrett gets almost as much attention as her quest to become the first snowboarder to win three straight Olympic golds, while Shiffrin’s fiance, injured Norwegian racer Aleksander Aamodt Kilde, is cast as the emotional subplot to her comeback arc.

The Olympics haven’t started. The thirst content has.

The Take

I’m not here to pretend these people aren’t beautiful. They are. They’re also basically science experiments in elite conditioning and mental toughness.

The problem isn’t noticing that; the problem is stopping there.

When we slap a “hottest” label on a group of Olympians, we shrink a universe of sacrifice and skill into a dating app carousel. These aren’t reality contestants fighting for a ring; they’re grinding through 4 a.m. workouts, chronic injuries, and the kind of pressure most of us only feel when we’re stuck in airport security.

We keep calling them “hottest” when the real headline is “most unstoppable.”

Look at the actual resumes being flattened into click-friendly eye candy:

• Mikaela Shiffrin is heading to one of her favorite World Cup stops, Cortina, trying to extend a record-breaking career after a brutal 2022 Games, where she skied out of multiple races under global scrutiny.
• Chloe Kim has turned halfpipe snowboarding into her own personal dynasty and is reportedly chasing an unprecedented third straight Olympic gold.
• Eileen Gu is not just “China’s golden girl” – she’s a two-time Olympic champion and a megastar navigating competing cultures, endorsement deals, and expectations from over a billion people.

That’s not “hottest.” That’s heavyweight.

And notice who gets this treatment most aggressively: women, and any man whose looks fit a movie-poster template. The coverage wraps their relationships, red-carpet shots, and Instagram feeds into a neat little fantasy package and sells that harder than their technique, tactics, or mental game.

It’s the same old equation: the more a woman dominates in sport, the more some corners of the media rush to soften her into something pretty, relatable, or attached to a man we already know.

Here’s a wild thought: if you absolutely must do a list, how about most clutch, most decorated, or “athletes overcoming the wildest odds”?

Bodies age. Records and legacies stick around.

Receipts

Confirmed:

• Mikaela Shiffrin is the most decorated alpine skier in World Cup history and arrived at the 2026 season having secured multiple season titles, including in slalom, according to official World Cup standings and the International Ski and Snowboard Federation (FIS) results (2023-2024 seasons).
• Shiffrin’s 2022 Beijing Olympics featured several high-profile DNFs in her signature events, which she discussed openly in post-race interviews carried by major sports networks in February 2022.
• Chloe Kim won Olympic gold in snowboard halfpipe at both PyeongChang 2018 and Beijing 2022, per the International Olympic Committee’s official athlete database, putting her on track to chase a third consecutive title in 2026.
• Eileen Gu won two gold medals and one silver in freestyle skiing at the Beijing 2022 Olympics, as recorded by the IOC and freestyle skiing event results.
• Jutta Leerdam is a Dutch speed skater and has publicly confirmed her relationship with Jake Paul in social media posts and interviews in 2023.
• Myles Garrett, a defensive star for the Cleveland Browns, and Chloe Kim have appeared together publicly and shared posts confirming their relationship on their verified social media accounts in 2024.

Reported / Framed in recent coverage (not the core facts of competition):

• Recent pre-Olympic lifestyle and sports features have packaged Shiffrin, Kim, Gu, Leerdam, and others as part of “hottest” or “most attractive” athlete roundups, often emphasizing appearance, relationships, and social media presence as much as or more than competition records.
• These pieces frequently describe Milan-Cortina as set to “sizzle” thanks to athletes’ looks, rather than their athletic performance – a framing choice, not a factual claim.

Backstory (For the Casual Reader)

If you’re not mainlining sports coverage year-round, here’s the quick primer.

Mikaela Shiffrin, 30, from Colorado, has rewritten alpine ski history with more World Cup wins than any skier before her, male or female. She came into 2022 as a heavy favorite, suffered a very public collapse on the biggest stage, and has been slowly, methodically building her way back to dominance – all while dealing with major personal loss and relentless media pressure.

Chloe Kim became a household name at 17 when she won halfpipe gold in 2018, then did it again in 2022. She’s juggled fame, college, mental health breaks, and a busy endorsement career while staying the face of women’s snowboarding.

Eileen Gu, born in 2003, competes for China and exploded into global fame at the Beijing Games with two golds and a silver in freestyle skiing. She’s also a model and brand ambassador, which makes her an advertiser’s dream and a lightning rod in Western media discourse.

Now all three are headed toward Milan-Cortina with enormous expectations – but the spotlight keeps drifting to who they’re dating, how they look on red carpets, and whether they’ll “sizzle” on camera.

Here’s my stance: appreciating these athletes’ style, charisma, and yes, beauty is fine. Reducing them to that is lazy. They’re not just “the hottest” – they’re the people redefining what’s humanly possible on snow and ice.

Question for you: When you watch the Winter Games, do you find yourself more drawn to the athletes’ performance stories or to the glossy, looks-and-lifestyle coverage that wraps around them – and do you think media should change how it balances the two?

Sources:

• International Olympic Committee athlete bios and event results for Mikaela Shiffrin, Chloe Kim, and Eileen Gu (accessed through official IOC records, 2018-2022).
• International Ski and Snowboard Federation (FIS) World Cup standings and race reports for Mikaela Shiffrin’s season titles (2022-2024 competition seasons).
• Televised and published post-race interviews with Mikaela Shiffrin from the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics carried by major U.S. sports broadcasters in February 2022.
• Public social media posts and interviews from Jutta Leerdam, Jake Paul, Chloe Kim, and Myles Garrett confirming their relationships (2023-2024).