Harrop, Anselmet combine to win mixed relay for France as part of ski mountaineering's Olympic debut

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BORMIO, Italy (AP) — Once Thibault Anselmet reached the top of the last climb, he began to raise his hands. Then, a triumphant punch through the air.

Because a gold medal was simply all downhill from there.

Emily Harrop and Anselmet jumped out to a lead and never looked back in combining to win the mixed relay for France on Saturday as part of ski mountaineering's Olympic debut at the Milan Cortina Games.

All part of their lung-burning strategy.

“Go off strong and to just make everyone run after us,” Harrop explained. “I was ready to push and to dig deep. I feel like I couldn’t have pushed much harder today.”

In this particular race, each athlete completed two laps, tagging the other after every loop. Harrop and Anselmet finished the Stelvio course in a time of 26 minutes, 57.44 seconds, holding off the Swiss team of Marianne Fatton and Jon Kistler by 11.86 seconds. Spanish racers Ana Alonso Rodriguez and Oriol Cardona Coll captured the bronze.

Ski mountaineering, which is called “skimo” for short, was voted into the Olympic program in 2021. The individual sprint races crowned the sport's first Olympic champions — Fatton and Cardona Coll — on Thursday with the falling snow adding another element to the historic day.

On this afternoon, it was all about stamina — who could suffer the best over a tough course. Harrop grabbed the early lead on the first lap and the French kept pushing the lung-searing pace. So confident was Anselmet that he started celebrating well before the finish line — at the top of the course, a mini-celebration, and midway down the descent, an arms-raised celebration. Of course, at the finish, a full-out celebration.

“It was really fun,” Anselmet said.

A thrilling end to a sport that made quite an initial impression.

The only remaining question is this: What’s the Olympic future for ski mountaineering? It’s a proposed sport for the 2030 Winter Games in the French Alps.

“We feel like these two days were the first foot in the door of skimo’s Olympic journey,” said Harrop, the silver medalist in the sprint race. “We’re proud to think that, yeah, people enjoyed it, enjoyed the show. We really hope that it’s going to continue for us in 2030.”

The fans certainly welcomed the pulse-raising pace of this race.

“There was so much crowd and energy and so many people to cheer for us,” Fatton said. “It’s amazing.”

American racers Anna Gibson and Cameron Smith finished in fourth. Not bad for a team that months ago didn't even have a spot in Bormio. Gibson only began competing a short while ago and helped Smith and Americans secure a spot to the Winter Games at a World Cup event in early December.

“I think it shows that the moment wasn't too big for us,” Smith said of their finish. “We performed out of our minds today.”

They were quite the teammates, too, right down to their matching pink cowboy hats after the race.

“For me, (the hat) is just a reminder to stay loose and stay joyful,” explained Gibson, who, like Smith, had numerous family and friends in the stands. “Remember that it’s all for fun.”

It was a different course setup than the sprint race, with an extra ascent and descent adding to the already difficult challenge. The mixed teams alternated between female and male racers over four laps. The course length was listed as 1,410 meters (4,626 feet) with the total ascent around 137 meters (450 feet).

The racers started on an ascent before a descent into the transition zone. They put on their “skins” — a piece of fabric on the bottom of the skis for better uphill traction — as they navigated a diamond-shaped pattern that led them to a set of stairs. They stowed their skis on their backs and ran up the steps in ski boots. Then they put their skis back on and scaled another uphill climb before taking the skins off again and flying downhill.

Once they reached the “handover” zone, they tagged their partner to begin another lap. Fatton cut the lead heading into the final lap but Anselmet found another gear to restore the advantage.

“I was really motivated to catch her,” Fatton said of Harrop. “That gave me fire for the whole race, for the second loop. I gave everything. It was an amazing race.”

Even through his exhaustion, Cardona Coll echoed that thought in a race where his team weathered a three-second penalty for a rules infraction. His partner, Alonso Rodriguez, also competed on a torn ACL suffered in a car crash in September while training on her bike.

“Really tired. We gave it all today,” Cardona Coll said. “An amazing day. .. A lot of joy and a lot of happiness.”

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AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics