In December, Stanford sophomore defender Sammy Smith was representing the Cardinal in the 2025 College Cup final on a grassy soccer field. By February, Smith will be on snow-capped Italian mountains representing the United States in the 2026 Milano Cortina Winter Olympics.
Smith, 20, was named to the Team USA the cross-country skiing roster on Thursday, alongside four-time Olympian Jessie Diggins, who won the nation’s first Olympic gold in cross country in team sprint in 2018 at Pyeongchang, Korea. Smith said making her Olympic debut will ‘make a lifelong dream a reality.”
“I could not be more excited to represent the U.S. at the Winter Olympics,” Smith said in a statement.
TEAM USA: Here’s the complete 2026 Winter Olympics competition schedule
The Boise, Idaho, native earned her Olympic bid following a skate sprint and classic sprint win at the U.S. Cross Country Championships in Lake Placid, New York, in January, less than a month after Stanford women’s soccer lost to Florida State in the national championship match. Smith then bolstered her resume with a 12th place sprint finish in a World Cup race in Oberhof, Germany, on Jan. 17.
Smith is one of eight women named to the U.S. cross-country skiing roster for 2026 Milano Cortina Games, joining Diggins, Rosie Brennan, Lauren Jortberg, Kendall Kramer, Julia Kern, Novie McCabe and Hailey Swirbul. She’s also one of at least four Stanford undergraduates that qualified for the games: joining Great Britain’s Zoe Atkin (freestyle skiing), China’s Eileen Gu (freestyle skiing) and USA’s Brandon Kim (short track speed skating).
This is not the first time Smith has represented her country. She represented the USA at the 2022 FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup and played for the under-19 team at the 2023 Pan American Games.
Cross-country skiing is the oldest form of skiing at the Olympics and dates back to the first Winter Games in Chamonix, France, in 1924. The women’s events were first contested at the 1952 Oslo Winter Olympics.
The USA TODAY app gets you to the heart of the news — fast. Download for award-winning coverage, crosswords, audio storytelling, the eNewspaper and more.
