Several Mainers are kicking off the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy. Sam Morse, Nathan Pare, Emily Fischnaller and Frank Del Duca are among the latest in a long legacy of people from the Pine Tree State to take part in the Winter Games. More than 50 Mainers have taken part in the Games.

Here’s a look — curated from our Newspapers.com archives — at some of our state’s past competitors from 1928 to now.

Geoffrey Mason, 1928

You might have thought Geoffrey Mason, a 1923 Bowdoin College graduate and track and football star, would have made big local news when his five-person bobsleigh team took the gold on Feb. 18, 1928, in St. Moritz, Switzerland. But a search on Newspapers.com for Mason and that event only brought up mentions of Billy Fiske, who led the team.

Olympics.com has a photo of this somewhat accidental quintet.

“Most Olympic champions are the products of years of training and sacrifice. That was certainly not the case for Mason. Nineteen days after he first saw a bobsled, Mason won a gold medal,” states the Rhode Island Heritage Hall of Fame, which inducted Mason — a longtime resident of that state — in 2004.

Mason, living in Germany at the time, had read in a newspaper that the U.S. was in search of volunteers for a bobsleigh team it was organizing. He applied via letter and was immediately brought on the team.

Mason was — the hall of fame report noted — a mail-order Olympian.

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Wendell Broomhall, 1948 and 1952

Wendell “Chummy” Broomhall, of Rumford, was a champion skier since age 15 who fought with the 10th Mountain Division in World War II. He was the only Mainer to receive an invitation to compete in the 1948 Winter Olympics, held in St. Moritz.

Maine has sent a skier to the winter games every time since.

Broomhall finished 65th in the 18-kilometer cross country race, with a time of 1:31:40. The Feb. 8, 1948 edition of the Sun Journal reported that the Americans pulled out of the skiing relay because two of its members (Broomhall and Correy Engen, of Utah) were exhausted after the 18-kilometer race the prior Saturday.

Named Maine’s outstanding amateur athlete for 1951, Broomhall returned to Olympic action for the 1952 winter games, held in Oslo, Norway. Another Rumford resident, Bob Pidacks, also competed.

Broomhall fared better this time, placing 57th, with a time of 1:14:06. Pidacks finished 72nd with a finishing time of 1:18:25.

Prior to embarking for Oslo, Olympic ski jumpers and cross-country skiers descended upon Rumford to get in one last week of practice.

Broomhall is among those featured in the Ski and Snowboard Olympians of Oxford County Exhibit at the Bethel Historical Society, which runs from Feb. 7 to March 27 this year.

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Eric Weinrich, 1987

In 1976, 9-year-old Eric Weinrich was a member of the Squirts youth hockey team, photographed among other local athletes in the Rumford Falls Times.

Twelve years later, Weinrich was a member of the U.S. Olympic hockey team, photographed among the best of the best as he took to the ice in Calgary, Alberta.

It almost didn’t happen. In the weeks leading up to the February 1988 games, the Gardiner defenseman suffered first a shoulder injury, then a bout of mono mixed with strep throat.

“With talent and a strong work ethic, Eric Weinrich is blessed,” the Kennebec Journal reported. “But when it’s rained on him, it’s poured.”

The U.S. team finished seventh.

“I think people had the idea that it was a vacation up here. But it was work. We had a job to do when we got here,” Weinrich wrote in his “Olympic Diary” column of Feb. 26, 1988, published in the Kennebec Journal.

Weinrich’s thoughts turned to home. “I know right away when I get back home, everyone will want to know all about it,” he said. “But it’s the kind of experience where you really won’t know it was great until a little while later.”

The 21-year-old turned pro soon after, opting to sign on with the New Jersey Devils instead of continuing with the University of Maine’s hockey team.

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Julie, Rob and Anna-Lise Parisien – ’92, ’94 and ’98

Any family would be proud to have one son or daughter participate in the Olympics. For Victor and Jill Parisien of Auburn, three of their alpine skier kids — Julie, Robert and Anna-Lise — made the Olympic grade.

Julie competed in 1992 (Albertville, France), 1994 (Lillehammer, Norway) and 1998 (Nagano, Japan). Her first Olympics saw her best results, where she finished fourth in slalom and fifth in giant slalom.

Rob joined Julie in Albertville, finishing 20th in giant slalom. Two years later, Anna-Lise came in 13th in giant slalom.

Julie missed the bronze by just 0.05 seconds in 1992. It was an accomplishment made particularly astounding considering she skied with a cast on her broken left wrist, a few temporary front teeth and 13 lower lip stiches from injuries sustained in skiing ventures one month prior, the Sun Journal reported in a February 2010 story about the siblings’ Olympic recollections.

“My best memory was coming down on the second run of GS after being sixth. I saw three straight USA skiers ranked first through third, although it was just temporary,” Julie said. “The games are a bittersweet memory.”

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Seth Wescott, 2006

Seth Wescott, one of Maine’s greatest Olympic success stories, scored a gold medal in snowboardcross at the 2006 games.

As the 29-year-old Farmington native celebrated his victory in Bardonecchia, Italy, his supporters back at the Sugarloaf/USA bar Wescott co-owned in Carrabassett Valley lauded their hometown hero with golden margaritas dubbed “Seth-a-ritas.” Then-Gov. John Baldacci said Wescott would be honored with “Seth Wescott Day.”

Returning home later that month, Wescott was joined by about 300 people, primarily kids, on a snowboardcross course down the side of Sugarloaf Mountain that he’d designed. “It’s always a good feeling to come home, and to get a reception like this is amazing,” he said.

Then, of course, came the sequel. Wescott outdid himself at the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver, British Columbia, taking two gold medals and becoming the first American since 1952 to do so.

He returned to his high school alma mater, Mt. Blue, in May 2010 to retire his uniform number. Although he’d gotten off to a rough start in the qualifying rounds a few months prior in Canada, seeing the number 17 on his bib for the first time bolstered his confidence. After all, 17 had been his lucky number at Mt. Blue, and it continued to prevail in Vancouver.

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‘The world still comes together’

These profiles in Olympic success are merely a tip of the iceberg, with more than 50 Mainers having attended the winter games. They’re part of a unifying legacy that’s as critical today as ever.

A Press Herald editorial in February 1998 — from when Julie Parisien, Kirsten Clark and Marcus Nash competed in Nagano — also expressed that sentiment:

“With winter games now scheduled two years after summer games — giving the world some kind of Olympics every two years rather than four — the games seem less momentous than in the past. The commercialization and professionalization of the games have also changed the event for many.

“That the world still comes together, however, under the Olympic torch is inspiring. It’s an event worth noting and celebrating.”

The Winter Olympics begin Friday, Feb. 6. See the full schedule here.

Alex Lear is digital producer for the Maine Trust for Local News.

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