The standout athletes have both competed at five Olympic Games.
MILAN, Metropolitan City of Milan — Two Team USA star athletes will help close out the 2026 Winter Olympics.
Standout Olympians Hilary Knight and Evan Bates will carry the U.S. flag during the Games’ Closing Ceremony on Sunday, Team USA announced on Friday.
This is the fifth Olympic Games for both athletes.
Knight made history less than 24 hours before the announcement, scoring the most career goals in U.S. women’s hockey Olympic history. The record-breaking moment happened right before Team USA beat Canada in the event’s gold medal game. The milestone moment came a week after she had tied the record previously held by Natalie Darwitz and Katie King.
Knight previously won gold with Team USA in 2018 and earned silver medals in 2010, 2014 and 2022. In Team USA’s opening game of the 2026 Winter Olympics, she became the first hockey player to appear in five Winter Olympics. Knight’s fifth Olympic run includes appearances in Vancouver (2010), Sochi (2014), PyeongChang (2018), Beijing (2022) and now Milan Cortina (2026).
On top of it all, Knight also made personal history at the 2026 Games, proposing to fellow Olympian Brittany Bowe on Wednesday, using a slim silver-colored ring.
Bates, along with his wife and ice dance partner Madison Chock, won a silver medal after performing at the free dance finals on Feb. 11. They also won a gold medal in the team event. The pair had previously won three world championships and dominated the Grand Prix Final, but an Olympic medal had just been out of reach since finishing fourth at the Beijing Winter Olympics in 2022.
The pair first started working together in 2011 when Chock’s first ice dance partner, Greg Zuerlein, retired, according to Cosmopolitan. They also skated in the 2014 Sochi Olympics as teammates, and by the 2018 PyeongChang Olympic Games, they were a couple. A few months after their third Olympics in Beijing, they announced their engagement.
When and where is the Closing Ceremony?
The closing ceremony will take place on Feb. 22, 2026, at Verona Olympic Arena. The historic venue is known for world-class opera performances, which will be highlighted during the closing ceremony, according to the IOC.
A city forever associated with Romeo and Juliet, Verona will host the final act of the Games inside the ancient Roman Arena, where some 1,500 athletes will celebrate their feats against a backdrop of Italian music and dance.
Acclaimed ballet dancer Roberto Bolle has been rehearsing for the Closing Ceremony inside the Arena di Verona this week under a veil of secrecy, along with some 350 volunteers, for a spectacle titled “Beauty in Motion,” which frames beauty as something inherently dynamic.
“Beauty cannot be fixed in time. This ancient monument is beautiful if it is alive, if it continues to change,” said the ceremony’s producer, Alfredo Accatino. “This is what we want to narrate: An Italy that is changing, and also the beauty of movement, the beauty of sport and the beauty of nature.”