- The U.S. mixed aerials team won gold at the 2026 Milano Cortina Winter Olympics.
- This victory marked Team USA’s 11th gold medal, a new record for a single Winter Olympics.
- The team consisted of Chris Lillis, Connor Curran, and Kaila Kuhn.
LIVIGNO, Italy – The record-setting 11th gold medal for Team USA at these 2026 Milano Cortina Winter Olympics came in high-flying fashion.
The United States mixed aerials team won gold, with Chris Lillis, Connor Curran and Kaila Kuhn flying and contorting themselves to the top of the podium.
The 11 gold medals in Italy are the most for the entire team at any Winter Olympics, surpassing the 10 won during the 2002 Salt Lake City Games. Alerted of the news in the mixed zone as gold medals hung at chest-level, the trio reacted with a mixture of pleasant surprise and glee.
The U.S. won the first mixed aerials event four years ago at the 2022 Beijing Games. As the lone member on both of those teams, Lillis has thought about why the Americans succeed in the team event but stumbled during the individual side. A lot of the athletes grew up playing team sports, he said. They can use one another for motivation.
“I think that really helps us, especially in aerial skiing,” Lillis said. “In aerials skiing, it can feel really lonely up there.”
They vibed off each other. From the beginning, they asserted dominance and departed the first round of finals in pole position. But scores reset and didn’t matter with four teams left in the field.
Kuhn set the tone. Curran squashed the nerves. Lillis delivered the haymaker – a jump that he had no issue with since it’s one he’s landed for 10 years.
Switzerland took silver and China finished with bronze. According to Lillis, the average aerials skier crashes on 60 percent of their jumps. For the Americans to go 6-for-6 while at least one skier from the six other countries competing was more than clutch.
Coming into the Olympics, the team figured to be Kuhn, Lillis and Quinn Dehlinger – the defending world champions in the event. But Dehlinger reaggravated a knee injury during training that forced him to not participate in both the individual and team event. Snow, wind and fog in the area for the last week also drastically altered the training schedule and made for underprepared jumpers.
Curran found out with the rest of the team that he’d be part of the trio around 6:30 p.m.
“I want to perform for my team,” he said. “It’s bigger than me. I’m glad I got to perform my best.”
Kuhn took gold at the 2025 world championships and also won the mixed aerials event with Lillis. She advanced alongside teammate Winter Vinecki to the six-person finals in the individual event, but both messed up their final jump to miss the podium.
On the men’s side, Curran and Lillis advanced to the 12-person final but didn’t make it past the six-person cutdown.
Kuhn said the team were “pretty crushed” by not medaling in the individual competitions.
“None of us really performed at our highest degree that we could have,” she said.
But the opportunity to bounce back was there. They used it as motivation, she said.
“It worked out in our favor,” Kuhn said.
But calling it redemption didn’t sit right with Lillis. It doesn’t erase what had happened less than 24 hours ago.
“I’ve fallen just short twice now, and it hurts, and I know that I’m capable of more,” said Lillis, who has 15 World Cup podium finishes. “And we’ll see, maybe in the future, I’ll be able to get that monkey off my back and get on the individual podium.”
Nor does it negate the joy of another gold medal, he said.
“It’s so great to get Olympic gold with my teammates, and to do it for them, and them doing it for me,” Lillis said. “I couldn’t describe how special it is to bring home a gold for the U.S.”
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