The Olympic Village in Milan offers plenty of perks and amenities for athletes, including free food, stress plants and beds that are not made of cardboard.

"Would you see it as free speech or understand it if Americans were jeered in the opening ceremony?" a reporter asked IOC President Kirsty Coventry.

Athletes have the opportunity to adopt or foster plants in the Olympic Village and some have even put a fun, "Heated Rivalry" twist on the hobby.

No short list of athletes to watch at an Olympics is ever complete. But here are our picks for 26 of the biggest non-U.S. names to watch.

Many top U.S. athletes have spent their careers training on the very mountains they'll be competing on in the Milan-Cortina Games. Lindsay Vonn wanted to stage a comeback on these slopes, U.S. biathletes have coaches from the region,

Pope Leo XIV, an avid tennis player, marks the start of the Winter Games by praising sports for promoting positive values and fair play.

Multiple controversies have shrouded the entire hockey scene around the Milan Olympics since its very first announcement. From an incomplete arena to a literal hole during the testing of the venue, it has seen it all.

Given the Trump Administration’s crackdown on immigration in Minnesota, the red, white, and blue is not widely saluted on these streets — other than by the Americans who made the trip here.