Park City’s Ben Loomis competes in Nordic Combined in the Milano Cortina Olympics

Ben Loomis (R) and Niklas Malacinski after the Cross Country portion of their Nordic Combined in the Milan Cortina Olympics. Photo: TownLift // Michele Roepke

CORTINA, Italy — Parkite Ben Loomis represented the USA in the Nordic Combined event along with teammate Niklas Malacinski at the 2026 Milano Cortina Olympics. 

“Definitely, the highlight of these Games, for me, is having my friends and family here cheering me on.” Loomis told TownLift in the finish area after the ski jump. “I was surprised my jump stacked up where it has so far. I wasn’t super happy with it, but overall, I’m happy it put me in a good spot.”

Loomis, who grew up participating on Wisconsin’s Flying Eagles Ski Club, is in his third Olympics. 

After the afternoon Olympic Cross Country ski race he told TownLift, “It was about 50 degrees warmer than the last Olympic race in Beijing, so it was challenging, but I think it can only be better after this during these Games. It taught us that we’ve got to be prepared for everything, It made for fun race, even though it was definitely a tough one.”

Loomis’ dad, Paul, and mom, Caryl, watched him as well as his sister. His brother and coach of the Park City Ski & Snowboard Nordic combined Team, Adam Loomis, told TownLift, “Showing consistency to go to three games has surely been as an impressive career. Having three Olympics by 27 years old is something that probably when he was 15, we knew it was possible, but hard to imagine. So, seeing it happen is pretty special.”

Park City’s Billy Demong, an Olympic gold and silver medal-winning USA Nordic combined athlete told TownLift about Loomis two weeks ago at Soldier Hollow, as he also coached the Park City Ski & Snowboard Team, “Ben’s representation at Olympics for this country is fantastic, and he will continue to make us all proud over there.” 

Malacinski is from the Steamboat Springs Winter Sports Club and is in his first Olympics. After the morning ski jump, he told TownLift, “It’s all been a little unbelievable, an amazing experience overall, and I’m just so grateful for everyone and everything that has gotten me to this point.”

TownLift asked how he’ll spend the time in between the ski jump and the cross country race. “Maybe get the nerves down a little bit, go in a quiet room and relax and just prepare mentally for this heart race coming up,” he said.

After the cross country race Malacinski told TownLift, “It was hard to kind of gauge the effort on each lap, just because the conditions were so hard, but the atmosphere was amazing. You can’t always ask for perfect conditions, so we made the most of it and just really soaked in the experience.”

Norway won the gold, Austria silver, and Finland bronze. Loomis finished 17th and 18th, respectively.

Nordic combined Olympian Stephen Schumann, once an athlete on and now a coach of Park City Ski & Snowboard told TownLift about Niklas two weeks ago, “He deserves to go to the Olympics as much as anybody. He’s worked super hard, especially over the last four years. He narrowly missed the last Olympic Games in 2022 and I watched him, as one of his teammates, push really hard, make the sacrifices, and do the things that he needs to do to put himself in a position where there was no way he was going to miss these Games. So chapeau tip to Niklas.”