Corinne Stoddard Moved to Salt Lake City at 17 to Train. In Milan She Skated to an Olympic First

Corinne Stoddard, a short track speed skater who moved to Salt Lake City at 17 to train with the U.S. national team, won bronze in the women's 1,500 meters at the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic Winter Games on Friday, Feb. 20, 2026. South Korea's Kim Gil-Li won gold and Choi Min-Jeong silver.

An NBC Olympics report published by US Speedskating said the medal made her the first American woman to reach an Olympic 1,500m podium, the first U.S. woman on an Olympic short track podium since 2010, and the first American of either gender to win an Olympic short track medal since 2018.

"Today was just to prove to myself that I can skate under the Olympic pressure and to prove to myself that I'm still me," she said afterward, in the same report.

How the bronze came together

Stoddard, who goes by Corie, arrived in Milan as the world No. 2 overall, the report said, and her first day of racing did not go to plan: she slipped three times. By the 1,500m final she was racing from the front. Salt Lake Community College, which lists her among its current or recent students, described the bronze as won "by controlling the race from the lead position into the final laps."

"I basically came from the depths of hell to get here," she said in the same report.

Her other results in Milan, by Team USA's profile, were eighth in the mixed relay and the 3,000m relay, 24th in the 1,000m and 31st in the 500m.

It was her second Olympics. At Beijing 2022 she was seventh in the 1,000m, 18th in the 1,500m, 32nd in the 500m and eighth in both relays, Team USA lists. The same profile notes she broke her nose in her first Olympic race there.

A world medal to close the season

Three weeks after the Games, Stoddard went to the 2026 World Championships in Montreal and took another 1,500m bronze, in 2:31.386, 0.383 behind South Korea's Kim Gilli, with the Netherlands' Xandra Velzeboer second, US Speedskating reported. She also finished fourth in the 500m and fifth in the 1,000m.

Across the 2025-26 ISU Short Track World Tour she collected eight individual podiums and finished second in the Crystal Globe standings, by the same report. The season before, her US Speedskating profile lists her third overall on the World Tour, with a 1,500m win at the third stop.

She had already been on a world podium. At the 2024 World Championships, US Speedskating's profile lists 1,500m bronze and 3,000m relay silver. Team USA notes that she and teammate Kristen Santos-Griswold shared that 1,500m podium, the first time two U.S. women made the podium of the same individual event at worlds since short track became an Olympic medal sport in 1992. As a junior she won 1,000m silver and 500m bronze at the 2019-20 Junior World Championships.

Her Utah ties

Team USA's profile says Stoddard grew up in Federal Way, Washington, and moved to Salt Lake City at 17 to train full time with the national team. Both US Speedskating and Team USA print her hometown as Tacoma, Washington.

The U.S. short track program is based in Utah. US Speedskating's 2026-27 Short Track National Team, announced July 7, 2026, is coached under Stephen Gough, Adam Callister and high performance director Andréa Do-Duc at the Utah Olympic Oval in Kearns, and Stoddard is one of its five women. Her profile lists her on the national team from 2018 through 2027.

Utah schools claim her too. Team USA lists her education as the University of Utah, and the U named her among its 2026 Olympians with ties to the university. Salt Lake Community College listed her among 15 current or recent students heading to Italy, in its Emergency Medical Technician program. KSL's list of Utah's 2026 Winter Olympians, drawn from the Utah Sports Commission, described her as a Utah resident. She raced in Milan alongside SLCC's other Olympians and the University of Utah's 2026 Olympians.

Back to her first sport, then back to the ice

Stoddard came to short track from inline skating. Team USA lists her as the 2019 World Roller Games junior world champion in the 10K elimination, and quotes her on the sport: "It is my number one passion. It's just not in the Olympics."

After Milan she went back to it. In a summer diary published by the ISU on May 21, 2026, she said she had moved to Mainz, Germany, near Frankfurt, to skate a full inline season, with that sport's world championships in Paraguay in October. US Speedskating said in September that she was taking a break from short track to return to her roots as an inline skater and was set to come back later this season. Because of the break she did not race the fall qualifier, and she is not on the U.S. team for the first World Tour stops.

Her plan, in her own words to the ISU: "Then I will go back to Salt Lake, and get back on the ice from November to February." She said she would then skate the last two World Tour events and the World Championships in March.

The 2026-27 season

The ISU's 2026-27 calendar puts the last two World Tour stops in Gdansk, Poland, on Feb. 5-7, 2027, and Tilburg, Netherlands, on Feb. 12-14, 2027. The World Championships are in Seoul on March 12-14, 2027.

She is one of the athletes followed on the Utah 2034 Olympics hub.

Key facts:

• Athlete: Corinne "Corie" Stoddard, short track speed skating, 2026-27 US Speedskating Short Track National Team
• Hometown: Tacoma, Washington (official profiles); moved to Salt Lake City at 17 to train with the national team
• Utah ties: national team coached at the Utah Olympic Oval in Kearns; University of Utah listed as her college; listed by SLCC as a current or recent student
• Olympic bronze: women's 1,500m, Milano Cortina 2026 (Feb. 20, 2026)
• Olympic first: first American woman on an Olympic 1,500m podium, per US Speedskating
• World bronze: 1,500m, Montreal, March 2026, 2:31.386
• World Tour: second in the 2025-26 Crystal Globe standings, eight individual podiums
• Next: back on the ice in Salt Lake from November, per her own plan; World Championships, Seoul, March 12-14, 2027