The Catalan athlete delivers an outstanding performance in his season debut at the Mountain Skiing World Cup, making his objective clear: to attend the Milano-Cortina d’Ampezzo Games with the ambition of winning the first Olympic skimo gold in history.
Oriol Cardona chose not to compete in the first US event, aiming to fine-tune his preparation and focus his entire plan on the pursuit of an Olympic medal. The strategy could not have started better, marked by a brilliant beginning to the Ski Mountaineering World Cup season.
The Catalan skier, the reigning Sprint champion and gold medalist at the last World Championships, once again made his intentions clear in Courchevel—a venue where he triumphed last season: his goal in Milano-Cortina d’Ampezzo is nothing less than to reach the top of the podium.
Cardona delivered an excellent running segment that allowed him to establish a lead insurmountable for the other competitors. The skier won with a time of 2:31.6, nearly four seconds ahead of one of his main rivals, Frenchman Thibault Anselmet.
This was the first race of the season for Oriol Cardona, who, like other notable contenders, decided not to participate in the Solitude World Cup last December in order to continue refining his preparation for the Winter Olympic Games.
That is the main challenge of the season, and for Cardona—one of the top candidates to win the first Olympic gold in the history of ski mountaineering—all planning and efforts are focused on his duty in Bormio, for Milano Cortina 2026.







