The road to Milan began in places like Poughkeepsie living rooms, Rochester backyards and Lake Placid sliding tracks. This winter, athletes with roots across Upstate New York will carry those hometown beginnings to the Olympic and Paralympic Games.
Here are over a dozen athletes with ties to Upstate New York regions from Western NY to the Adirondacks, Hudson Valley and more.
Clayton DeClemente – Poughkeepsie, Hudson Valley
Clayton DeClemente was roller skating around his Poughkeepsie home as a kid when his mom decided to sign him up for speedskating, according to his Team USA biography. He was named to his first world championship team in 2021 and has been competing on the world stage ever since. When he isn’t training for the Olympics, the 26-year-old works at the Utah Olympic Oval in Salt Lake City, feeding hungry families and athletes from the concession stand. Milan will mark the first Olympics for DeClemente, who specializes in the 1,500-meter race.
Rory Guilday – Chanhassen, Minnesota
Graduate of Cornell University in the Finger Lakes
Rory Guilday was in the 7th grade when a brain tumor left her unable to see from her right eye, according to her Team USA biography. After undergoing chemotherapy and spending almost a year unable to play contact sports, including hockey, Guilday returned to skating. She attended and played hockey for Cornell University in Ithaca, finishing her career as a two-time First Team All-Ivy League player. The 23-year-old defender made her debut with the U.S. women’s hockey team at the 2022 IIHF World Championship and currently plays for the Ottawa Charge.
Jonny Gustafson – Massena, Northern New York
Jonny Gustafson was just 11 years old when he got his first taste of the sport of luge at a slider search in Canton, he previously told North Country Public Radio. Milan will mark the 28-year-old Massena native’s second Olympics. Gustafson competed with Team USA Luge in the 2022 Winter Olympic Games in Beijing, coming in 19th place in the men’s singles competition.
Sean Hollander – Lake Placid, Adirondacks
Hailing from Lake Placid, Upstate’s “Olympic Village,” the Olympics are in Sean Hollander’s DNA. The 25-year-old competed for Team USA Luge at the Winter Olympics in Beijing in 2022, coming in 7th place in the team-relay-mixed category and 11th in the double-open category, according to his Team USA biography. Milan will mark the luge athlete’s second Olympics.
Sophia Kirkby – Ray Brook, Adirondacks
Ray Brook native Sophia Kirkby and her luge partner, Chevonne Forgan, are considered favorites to take home a medal in the women’s doubles luge Olympic debut. It has been a long, fun journey for Kirkby, who first tried luging at Mt Van Hoevenberg when she was 7 years old, according to USA Luge. The 24-year-old, a first-time Olympian, has a rich World Championships experience, including three medals. Kirkby also plans to bring her handmade, ceramic pins to Milan, she told Lake Placid News.
Emily Fischnaller – Suffield, Connecticut
New York National Guard Veteran, Adirondack resident
Two-time Olympian Emily Fischnaller, née Sweeney, started luge at age 10 and has deep ties to the Adirondacks. Though a Connecticut native, her father’s family is from Lake Placid, her parents now live in Saranac Lake, and she and her husband own a home in Lake Placid. Fischnaller made her Olympic debut in 2018, crashing on her fourth and final run in the women’s singles event and fracturing her back and neck, an injury that sidelined her for six months. A New York National Guard veteran and U.S. Army veteran of more than a decade, she returned to the Olympic stage at the 2022 Beijing Games. She is married to Italian men’s luger Dominik Fischnaller, a bronze medalist at those Olympics. The couple now split their time between Lake Placid and Meransen, Italy.
Chris Lillis – Pittsford, Western New York
Chris Lillis, a 27-year-old Pittsford native, has already made history in the world of aerial skiing. He was just 17 in 2016 when he became the youngest man to win a FIS aerials World Cup, according to US Ski & Snowboard. Lillis followed up that success by winning a gold medal for the aerials team at the 2022 Beijing Olympics.
Tate Frantz – Lake Placid, Adirondacks
In an Instagram announcement, 20-year-old Tate Frantz of Lake Placid recalled his desire to take part in what he called the “holy grail of sports.” Frantz began skiing at age 2 and will make his Olympic debut as a ski jumper for the U.S. Ski & Snowboard team. Nicknamed “Fly Guy” by family and friends, he will try to become the first American ski jumper to win an Olympic medal since Anders Haugen claimed bronze at the 1924 Chamonix Games.
Kaila Kuhn – Boyne City, Michigan
Lived and trained in Lake Placid, Adirondacks
This will be the second Olympics for Kaila Kuhn. She moved to Lake Placid at age 13 to train as a freestyle skier and reached the national team within two years, becoming the youngest member of the U.S. aerials team. Now 22, Kuhn returned to Lake Placid earlier this month to win her first career World Cup championship — in the same place where she first learned to jump. She told the Adirondack Daily Enterprise that Lake Placid is where her aerial skiing roots were formed, and she considers the bobsledders who also trained there her “uncles” for protecting her as a kid.
“Honestly, there’s not a better place that I would have wanted to get my first World Cup win,” she said in the interview.
Hayley Scamurra – Getzville, Western New York
Hayley Scamurra was only 7 years old when she told her youth hockey team that she would become an Olympian, according to her Team USA biography. Now 31, the Getzville native who grew up outside of Buffalo is once again living her childhood dream. She competed in the 2022 Winter Olympic Games in Beijing, where she and the U.S. women’s hockey team won a silver medal. Scamurra, a former member of the Buffalo Beauts, currently plays for Montréal Victoire.
Haley Winn – Rochester, Western New York
Growing up in snowy Rochester, Haley Winn learned to skate on a rink her dad built in the backyard, according to her Team USA biography. She’s come far from the pickup games with her older brothers: Winn, 22, is a defender with Team USA’s women’s hockey team. The Clarkson University graduate made her debut with the team during the 2022-23 Rivalry Series against Canada and has won three medals, including two golds.
Katie Verderber – Valier, Montana
Graduate of Syracuse University, Central New York
Katie Verderber, a Montana native, earned her law degree from Syracuse University. She was serving as judge advocate general for the U.S. Army in Afghanistan in 2019 when a back injury permanently damaged her spine, according to her Team USA biography. After finding out she would be in a wheelchair for the rest of her life, Verderber took up wheelchair curling in 2024. One year later, she was named to Team USA’s Paralympic wheelchair curling team. “It’s hard to believe I found out two years ago I would be in a wheelchair for the rest of my life to learning I’m going to be a Paralympian,” Verderber told Team USA.
Upstate New York’s Olympic footprint in Milan will extend beyond Team USA. A handful of athletes with college, family or training ties to the region will skate for other countries. Here’s who you will see:
Nina Christof – Hammelburg, Germany
Student at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, Capital Region
Nina Christof will go from playing on rinks in Upstate New York to a rink in Italy when she plays for Germany’s women’s ice hockey team in Milan. Christof, a native of Germany, is a student at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, where she is a senior forward and captain of the women’s hockey team. Her college announced her inclusion on Germany’s Olympic team in a Facebook post earlier this month.
Thomas Harley – Jamesville, Central New York
Thomas Harley is a Central New Yorker with dual Canadian citizenship. (Both of his parents were born in Canada.) The Jamesville native skated for Canada at the Under-18 World Championship in 2019 and at the World Junior Championship in 2021, where he won silver. In Milan, the Dallas Stars defenseman will play for Team Canada.
Monja Wagner – Romanshorn, Switzerland
Student at Union College in Schenectady, Capital Region
Monja Wagner is the second college student from the Capital Region set to compete in ice hockey at the Winter Olympics in Milan. Wagner, a student at Union College and a junior goaltender for the school’s women’s hockey team, will make her Olympic debut on Switzerland’s women’s ice hockey team. She is the first Union women’s hockey player to make it onto an Olympic roster, her college announced earlier this month in a news release.
Upstate New York is also home to Olympic alternates who will be fully trained and ready to step in if a qualifying athlete is unable to compete.
Jacob Sanchez – Montgomery, Hudson Valley
Team USA figure skater alternate
Jacob Sanchez of Montgomery in Orange County began figure skating at age 5 after initially hoping to play hockey. While taking beginner skating lessons, he discovered a love for the feeling of gliding across the ice on figure skates. The 18-year-old most recently finished eighth among 26 competitors at the 2026 ISU Four Continents Figure Skating Championships in Beijing, China. Sanchez trains at the Hudson Valley Figure Skating Club with 1984 Olympic pairs bronze medalists Larisa Selezneva and Oleg Makarov, as well as U.S. Figure Skating technical specialist Patch David.
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