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Massachusetts could win its first 2026 Olympic medal Tuesday. Here's how to watch
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It's a big day for Bay Staters at the Olympics — and you should tune in this afternoon if you want to see Massachusetts' first medal in Milan-Cortina:
Curling: Southborough's Korey Dropkin and teammate Cory Thiesse will compete in the mixed doubles curling gold medal match this afternoon against Sweden. It comes after "the KOR-ees" won a raucous, back-and-forth semifinals Monday against Italy, the reigning champions. (The highlights are tense!) Win or lose, today's result will be Team USA's first-ever medal in mixed doubles curling — and Massachusetts' first in these Olympics. "We're going for gold," Dropkin said after yesterday's match.
- How to watch: The match starts just after noon ET and can be livestreamed in its entirety on Peacock. The TV broadcast will begin on USA Network and switch to NBC around 12:50 p.m. It will also be re-aired at 9 p.m. ET on USA.
Figure skating: Norwood's Maxim Naumov — who lost both of his parents in the plane crash last year in Washington, D.C., that killed six local skating club members — will take the ice for the first time in the Olympics today. Naumov is scheduled to go second in the men's singles figure skating short program event this afternoon. “It's all about being resilient,” Naumov told The Associated Press last month, after being asked about his emotional return. "I find in times of really difficult emotional stress, if you can just push yourself a little bit more, and almost think, ‘What if? What if I can do it? What if, despite everything that happened to me, I can go out and do it?’ "
- How to watch: The event starts at 12:15 p.m. ET on USA and Peacock — and will be reaired on NBC around 9:45 p.m. If Naumov places in the top 24 during the short program, he'll advance to the free skate medal round Friday.
Cross-country skiing: In her final Olympics, decorated cross country skier and Wakefield resident Jesse Diggins was knocked out in the quarterfinals of the women's sprint classic this morning. While Diggins is the top-ranked women's cross country skier in the world, the strongest sprinters are from Sweden and Norway, according to NBC. In fact, Waltham native Julie Kern was the only woman not from Norway or Sweden to make it to the six-person finals. (The Swedes swept all three medals).
- Kern told WBUR's Amy Sokolow that the relatively warm weather in Italy made for "slushy and challenging" conditions. "It's made the courses even harder given that there's just a lot less glide and you're skiing through deep snow," Kern said. But the New Englander added: "This is what I grew up skiing on."
Other local angles to watch today: Team USA's women's ice hockey team (which includes several Massachusetts names) plays its final preliminary round game against rival Canada. Meanwhile, Vermont native Mikaela Shiffrin will make her 2026 Olympics debut.
In other local news:
On Beacon Hill: One of Gov. Maura Healey's aides is suing the Trump administration in an attempt to keep her job. As WBUR's Chris Van Buskirk reports, Valentina Amaro Bowser, a Venezuelan immigrant who is married to an American citizen, has been working in Healey's communications department on a H-1B visa. However, that visa is set to expire Saturday. Her lawsuit argues her application for permanent residency is being delayed by Trump's pause on processing visas from dozens of counties.
In related news: The Trump administration said it will not give the Babson College student who government lawyers admitted was mistakenly deported last Thanksgiving a pathway to return to the United States. Despite a federal judge's suggestion that the State Department grant 19-year-old Any Lucia Lopez Belloza a student visa so she could continue her studies, U.S. Attorney Leah Foley declined. Her reasoning was that Lopez Belloza, who came to the U.S. with her parents as a young child in 2014, would still be subject a decade-old deportation order.
- Meanwhile: The Trump administration said it plans to fight a judge's order instructing them to reinstate the school record of Tufts University doctoral student Rümeysa Öztürk so she can legally research and teach in the U.S.
Who's on third: The Red Sox traded for Milwaukee Brewers third baseman Caleb Durbin yesterday to fill their Alex Bregman-shaped hole in their infield. The 25-year-old finished third in last year's National League Rookie of the Year voting. In return, the Sox sent pitcher Kyle Harrison and infielder David Hamilton to the Brewers, and got a few other prospects, in what added up to be a six-person trade.
P.S.— Snow is back in the forecast this afternoon — with several inches possible north of the Pike. Sign up for our Weather Alerts email to get the full forecast from meteorologist Danielle Noyes sent directly to your inbox later this morning.
