BORMIO, Italy — Switzerland’s Loïc Meillard won Olympic gold in the men’s slalom Monday as Norway’s Atle Lie McGrath skied out in the second run after leading at the midpoint at the Milano Cortina Games. Meillard’s blistering final run produced a two-run total of 1 minute, 53.61 seconds, and McGrath’s early straddle — a “did not finish,” or DNF — sent him walking toward the trees lining the Stelvio course, Feb. 16, 2026.
Gold: Loïc Meillard (Switzerland) — 1:53.61
Silver: Fabio Gstrein (Austria) — +0.35
Bronze: Henrik Kristoffersen (Norway) — +1.13
Atle Lie McGrath and the moment everything changed
For most of the first run, Atle Lie McGrath was building the kind of advantage slalom skiers dream about — and fear. He posted 56.14 seconds in heavy snowfall and carried a 0.59-second lead into the afternoon, according to the FIS race report. Under Olympic rules, that lead meant he would go last in the second run, with every split time flashing a simple message: protect the margin, and the gold is yours.
Instead, the gate that ended his day came quickly. McGrath straddled early in Run 2 and was out, turning a near-certain medal into the hardest kind of empty finish corral — one where the athlete arrives without a time.
In the minutes that followed, he removed his gear and walked away from the course, heading into the wooded area beside the piste. McGrath later said he needed space to process what had happened in remarks carried by a Reuters account of his post-race reaction.
“I just needed some time for myself,” he said. “Today is the worst moment of my career.”
The disappointment landed with added weight. Atle Lie McGrath has been racing through these Games while grieving the death of his grandfather, a loss he said made it harder than usual to find perspective after a mistake.
Loïc Meillard’s gold ends a 78-year Swiss wait
Meillard arrived in Bormio with credentials that suggested he could handle the chaos: he is the reigning world champion in the discipline, and he has been one of the sport’s most complete technical skiers for years. Still, the Olympic slalom can be merciless — which is why Switzerland’s drought in the event had lasted since St. Moritz in 1948.
On Monday, Meillard broke it. He attacked the cleaner, second-run track, edged Austria’s Fabio Gstrein by 0.35 seconds, and then watched the final starters fail to dislodge him.
“To have three races, three medals, and to top it off with a gold — it’s perfect,” Meillard said in an Associated Press recap. The slalom title completed an Olympic set for Meillard in Bormio, adding to earlier medals in the team combined and giant slalom.
Even in celebration, Meillard acknowledged what had happened behind him. He called McGrath “the best skier this season,” a nod to the Norwegian’s form and the brutal way slalom can flip in one mistake.
Why this slalom was a survival test
Calling the men’s slalom “technical” can undersell how wild it looked from the start gate. The first run began in blizzard conditions that blanked out portions of the hill, built snow into ruts between racers and forced course workers into constant shoveling just to keep the line visible.
By the time the weather lifted, the damage was done: in a 96-athlete field, 49 racers did not finish the first run — more than half the starters — as detailed in NBC Olympics’ event report. Among the DNF list was Lucas Pinheiro Braathen, the giant slalom champion whose historic medal run had already made headlines earlier in the week.
The second run, by contrast, was clean and fast — the kind of slalom track where positions can swing dramatically. It also meant the pressure on the leader, McGrath, was amplified: the piste had improved, the splits were green for his rivals, and the gold was no longer something to chase. It was something to protect.
Atle Lie McGrath and Meillard, a rivalry years in the making
Monday’s finish also carried an echo from the recent past. At the 2025 world championships in Saalbach, Meillard won slalom gold after France’s Clément Noël skied out from the lead — and Atle Lie McGrath took silver behind him, as Reuters reported in 2025. In Bormio, the roles reversed in the cruelest way: the leader skied out, and Meillard cashed in with a second-run surge.
Atle Lie McGrath also arrived at the Olympics with momentum that made him one of the favorites. In January, he won the World Cup slalom in Wengen and moved to the top of the season standings, according to a Reuters World Cup report. He said afterward he took “100 risks” to close out the victory — a reminder that the same attacking approach that wins races can also end them in an instant.
The Wengen win also fit a longer pattern for the Norwegian team, which has leaned into an aggressive, slalom-first identity for years. In 2025, Atle Lie McGrath cried after leading a Norwegian 1-2-3 at Wengen — the first such sweep there in decades — a moment documented in a FIS feature on that race.
What comes next for Atle Lie McGrath
In alpine skiing, redemption usually arrives quickly: another start gate, another course, another chance to be a fraction cleaner than the rest. The Olympics do not work that way.
Atle Lie McGrath noted after the race that the next Olympic opportunity will come four years from now — and that is what made Monday’s DNF feel like more than a lost medal. It felt like time slipping away.
For Meillard, the gold sealed a historic moment for Swiss slalom. For Atle Lie McGrath, the image of him walking into the trees in full race gear will endure as a stark snapshot of what this sport demands — and what it can take.
