Are you young and feel like you’re not old enough to make an impression? Do you feel pressured to win every time you compete? Are you currently going through a tough time, and you feel like giving up? Are you learning something new, and you’re consistently failing to succeed in it? Are you looking for someone who’s made history? Or are you simply looking for inspiration? Well, look no further.
From Feb. 6 to Feb. 22, thousands of competitors radiated their athletic talent at the 2026 Winter Olympics, which took place in the Italian cities of Milan and Cortina D’Ampezzo. In the Olympics, tons of athletes had remarkable experiences. Some won gold medals, others broke records, and some made history. Each athlete who competed at the 2026 Winter Olympics has their own story, and each of their stories has inspirational lessons that can be applied to many things in life, including failure and recognition. Here are five of these stories.
Indra Brown (Australia)
Indra Brown is one of those Olympic athletes who demonstrates that age is just a number. At the age of 15, she won a bronze medal in freeski halfpipe at her World Cup debut at the Secret Garden venue, making her the youngest Australian athlete to win a medal. Not too long after, she won gold at the Calgary World Cup, attracting tons of praise and inspiring her fans. Brown may be young, but she shows us that anything is possible.
The 2026 Winter Olympics were her very first Olympics. While Brown won the World Cup in Calgary, she said she didn’t feel pressured to win a medal at the Olympics. In an interview Brown had with the Guardian, Brown stated that she simply wants to compete in the Olympics and celebrate the accomplishments she made in her previous races.
“I just want to go there and do my best and be really proud of what I’ve done,” Brown said. “This is my first Olympics, and I’m only 16.”
Brown made some astonishing achievements at the beginning of her athletic career. However, she has no plans to try to win a gold medal, for she has her entire life to do so. This can teach us the vital lesson that we should not rush and only look towards the future. Instead, we should enjoy the present moment and honor the triumphs we’ve made so far.
Mikaela Shiffrin (United States)
Mikaela Shiffrin is one of the most successful athletes in Olympic history. She currently holds the record as the most decorated U.S. alpine skier in Olympic history. She’s also the youngest female Olympic athlete to win a gold medal in slalom, and she recently became the second-oldest female Olympic athlete to win a gold medal in the same event. Most impressive of all, Shiffrin has the most World Cup podiums with 156.
Although Shiffrin has had lots of successes, she’s faced a million roadblocks and detours. She’s faced some heinous crashes within the past few years, including one at the Killington World Cup in December 2024. In the Beijing 2022 Olympics, Shiffrin received DNFs in slalom, giant slalom, and combined. On top of that, Shiffrin didn’t win any gold medals in slalom in PyeongChang or Beijing, and she received no medals in Beijing. But despite all the setbacks Shiffrin went through, she kept going. And in Milano Cortina, Shiffrin won gold in slalom, making that her first gold medal in the event in 12 years.
Shiffrin has been through a ton of hardship in her alpine skiing career. However, she didn’t let any of her setbacks stop her from being the exceptional athlete she is today. Her courage and perseverance teach us that no matter how many challenges block our path, we’ll find success as long as we believe in ourselves and use our grit and determination to push those challenges out of our way.
Maxim Naumov (United States)
When someone makes an Olympic debut, they’re usually exhilarated since they’ve put all the hard work in to qualify and they’re going to get to do something that only less than 1% of the world gets to do.
But that wasn’t the case for Maxim Naumov. The 2026 Winter Olympics were his debut Olympics. However, he wasn’t feeling excited. Instead, he was feeling grief.
On Jan. 29, 2025, Naumov lost his parents in a plane crash. The loss brought him a devastating amount of grief. However, despite the immense pain Naumov felt, he continued working towards his Olympic debut. When he returned to international competition a few months after his parents’ death, Naumov helped the families of the victims who died in the plane crash by raising money at the Legacy on Ice Benefit in Washington D.C. He competed at the United States National Championships, where he qualified for the 2026 Winter Olympics after receiving a bronze medal.
At the Olympics, Naumov didn’t receive a podium position. However, he doesn’t need a medal to show his determination to keep competing. Simply showing up at the Olympics manifests his willingness to push through his pain and continue his career. It’s possible that Naumov is still grieving from his parents’ death. However, his willingness to compete at the Olympics teaches us that while grief is a calamitous feeling, we should remain strong and hold on to the things we enjoy doing.
Alysa Liu (United States)
Alysa Liu’s story is similar to Shiffrin’s. Like Shiffrin, Liu won a gold medal at the 2026 Winter Olympics, and she made history by being the very first American to win a gold medal in women’s figure skating since the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics in 2002. Besides the Olympics, Liu won the 2025 ISU Figure Skating Championships, making that the very first American victory in the event since 2006.
Liu’s journey to those successes wasn’t easy. In the YouTube short above, Liu falls a bunch of times when training for figure skating. Liu never got any medals in the Beijing 2022 Olympics. When she competed, she got sixth place. Yet despite all the hardship Liu went through in training and in Beijing, she never gave up. Every time she fell, she got up and kept going. Eventually, all her hard work paid off, and a gold medal fell into her hands. Liu is one of those athletes who demonstrates that while failure is harsh, it is worth embracing, for the strength you obtain from failure will lead to success.
Tallulah Proulx (Philippines)
There are many young athletes who compete at the Olympics. Some of those young athletes are only teenagers. But what if I told you there was one Olympic athlete who wasn’t just a teenager and made her Olympic debut, but she was her nation’s very first and youngest female athlete to compete at the Olympics?
Meet Tallulah Proulx, a 17-year-old alpine skier from the Philippines who competed in slalom and giant slalom in the 2026 Winter Olympics. Not only is she a young Olympic athlete, but she’s the very first and youngest female Filipina athlete to compete at the Winter Olympics. She got 50th in slalom, and she got 52nd in giant slalom. While Proulx didn’t win any medals, she still made history by being the first and youngest Filipina athlete to compete in the Winter Olympics. In other words, making history at the Winter Olympics is not all about winning medals.
The stories of these five Olympic athletes are very inspiring. Brown tells us that anything can be accomplished at any age. At the same time, she teaches us not to rush in life. Shiffrin and Liu teach us not to let failure prevent us from trying to succeed. Naumov teaches us that while grief is agonizing, it doesn’t have to be a barrier. And Proulx tells us that you don’t need a medal to make history.
There are thousands more Olympic athlete stories out there. And like these five stories, they each contain their own valuable lesson that can influence our own lives.