Eyes in the Ice: How Camera Drones Redefined Broadcasting at the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Olympics
The 2026 Olympic Winter Games in Milan Cortina did not just showcase the world’s greatest winter athletes — they marked a watershed moment for aerial imaging technology. For the first time in Olympic history, first-person-view (FPV) drones were deployed live in broadcast competition coverage, delivering a visceral, immersive experience that traditional cameras simply cannot replicate. The result was arguably the most visually compelling Olympic broadcast ever produced, and a clear signal of where drone cinematography is heading next.
A Decade in the Making: From Sochi to Milan
The use of drones in Olympic broadcasting is not new. They made their debut at the 2014 Sochi Winter Games, where Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS) first experimented with aerial footage. Each subsequent Games expanded the scope: drones featured heavily in the 2022 Beijing Opening and Closing Ceremonies, and FPV drones were introduced into live mountain bike coverage at the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics.
But Milan Cortina 2026 was the moment everything scaled up dramatically. OBS deployed a total of 25 drones across all outdoor sports and select indoor events — 10 traditional aerial platforms for wide cinematic shots and 15 purpose-built FPV units for immersive chase coverage. It was the largest and most sophisticated drone operation in Winter Olympics history.
The Fleet: Three Classes of Drone, Three Jobs
What made Milan Cortina remarkable from a technical standpoint was the deployment of three distinct drone categories, each optimized for specific environments and shot types.
1. Sub-250g Micro FPV (Luge, Skeleton, Bobsled)
The most technically impressive unit in the OBS fleet was a micro-class FPV drone weighing just 243 grams — light enough to meet consumer regulatory weight thresholds globally, yet capable of speeds exceeding 140 km/h (87 mph). Powered by a 4S LiPo battery, these drones were purpose-built for one of the most demanding shooting environments imaginable: the narrow, ice-walled tubes of the Cortina Sliding Centre.
Fitted with an inverted (“pusher”) propeller configuration — a design choice by custom builder Dutch Drone Gods — the aircraft placed motors and rotors above the airframe. This freed the underside for broadcast equipment and critically kept propellers out of the camera’s field of view. For the sliding events, the design allowed the drone to skim inside the icy chutes and follow luge, skeleton, and bobsled athletes through the first turns of the course before peeling off as radio range became a limiting factor.
Radio link used 900MHz (Crossfire or ExpressLRS systems) — lower frequencies chosen specifically for better signal penetration in the mountainous terrain of the Dolomites. The broadcast feed was transmitted separately via a Proton camera + Domo PicoTXR COFDM transmitter, keeping the FPV pilot signal and broadcast signal on independent links for reliability.
2. 5-Inch FPV Racing Drone (Alpine Skiing, Snowboard, Freestyle)
For the open-slope disciplines at the Stelvio Ski Centre (men’s alpine) and Livigno Snow Park (snowboard and freestyle), OBS deployed heavier 5-inch FPV drones in the 600–800 gram class, capable of speeds exceeding 180 km/h (112 mph). Flying on DJI O4 Pro digital video links with DJI Goggles 3 for the pilot, these units could match or exceed the velocity of Olympic downhill skiers while maintaining tight, cinematic framing.
For viewers, the effect was transformative. “When a camera is chasing the athlete down the hill — right in front of them or right behind them — you truly get the sense of how fast they’re going,” said Michael Sheehan, NBC’s coordinating director for Olympic coverage. “That’s virtually impossible to capture with a wide shot shooting from the side. The drone coverage takes us to a place we’ve traditionally never been.”
3. Cinewhoop Drones (Indoor Venues, Close Proximity)
For events requiring flight near spectators or inside enclosed arenas, OBS deployed cinewhoop-style drones fitted with prop guards for safety. These aircraft carried Blackmagic Micro Studio Camera G2 bodies paired with Laowa wide-angle lenses — a compact cinema package that delivered the broadcast-grade image quality networks required.
Cinewhoops flew under the DJI FPV V1/V2 system and provided intimate, flowing coverage in speed skating, select indoor events, and ceremony footage. Their protected rotor design allowed flight closer to people and infrastructure than any racing drone could safely manage.
The Operational Reality: Three-Person Crews and Heated Huts
Each FPV drone at Milan Cortina was operated by a dedicated three-person team:
- Pilot — wearing FPV goggles (a VR-headset style rig), focused entirely on flight path and obstacle avoidance
- Director — managing timing, shot selection, and communication with the broader broadcast crew
- Technician — handling maintenance, battery swaps, and signal monitoring throughout the day
The teams operated from what OBS called a “heated support cabin” — a mobile base station equipped with battery charging infrastructure, a spare drone, receiver units, and dual monitors for simultaneous tracking of drone signal integrity and live race data.
Battery life was a significant operational consideration. Each 250-gram micro drone required a battery swap after just two athlete runs, making the technician role critical to maintaining coverage continuity through a full competition field.
Crucially, OBS trained pilots extensively in their assigned sports before the Games — and in some cases hired former competitors. The most cited example was Jonas Sandell, a former Norwegian national team ski jumper who now runs his own production company and piloted an FPV drone during ski jumping events. His firsthand knowledge of the sport’s biomechanics — where to be in space, when the key visual moments occur — produced footage impossible to replicate from pure technical skill alone. “What it’s actually like to fly. How fast, intense, and extreme ski jumping really is,” Sandell said of his goal. “I want audiences to experience that sensation as if they were in the air too.”
Sport-by-Sport: What Viewers Actually Saw
Alpine Skiing
FPV drones provided continuous accompaniment on the slopes at Cortina’s Tofane venue — soaring through the iconic Tofana Schuss, a steep, rock-flanked chute at the top of the women’s Super-G. Real-time on-screen graphic overlays tracked downhill lines, and AI-powered stroboscopic analysis broke down turns into individual frames. “I don’t notice them ever while skiing,” said Canadian alpine racer Britt Richardson. “But they make for cool TV clips.”
Luge, Skeleton & Bobsled
The sliding disciplines produced some of the Games’ most extraordinary footage. Sub-250g drones entered the icy chutes and followed athletes through the opening turns of the Cortina Sliding Centre — the first Olympic sliding track ever served by FPV coverage. Canadian luge competitor Trinity Ellis said athletes had acclimated to the drones through test events and training runs: “You can kind of hear it, but not really. It’s not that distracting.” Canadian bobsled coach Justin Kripps was enthusiastic: “It provides a great perspective. In a sport like ours, we’re always open to ways to make it more exciting for viewers.”
Speed Skating
Indoor FPV coverage of speed skating represented a first for the technology at any Winter Games. Cinewhoops flying inside the Milano Speed Skating Stadium offered behind-athlete chase shots that conveyed the competitors’ explosive power in ways that static rinkside cameras never could.
Ski Jumping
With Jonas Sandell at the controls, the ski jumping drone footage became one of the viral highlights of the Games — accompanying athletes down the inrun, through takeoff, and into initial flight phases before pulling back for the full soaring arc.
Freestyle Skiing & Snowboard
For trick-based disciplines at Livigno, 5-inch FPV drones captured jump height, rotation, and amplitude in real time. The drone angle — traveling alongside athletes through the air — gave viewers a spatial sense of the tricks that side-on camera positions fundamentally cannot provide.
Biathlon
Traditional drones positioned at the start line showed tactical fighting for position in a sport whose broadcast presentation had historically been dominated by wide telephoto shots.
Broadcast Integration: The Bigger Technical Picture
Drones were one pillar in an unprecedented broadcast infrastructure. OBS deployed over 810 total camera systems across Milan Cortina venues — a figure that illustrates how thoroughly the Olympics had become a technology showcase as much as a sporting event. Supporting that camera fleet: 1,800 microphones, 50 jibs and cranes, 12 cablecam rigs, 140 robotic PTZ cameras, and a high-capacity SMPTE ST 2110 IP network backbone connecting geographically distributed venues from Milan to Cortina d’Ampezzo.
The drone audio — that characteristic FPV rotor whine — was acknowledged by OBS CEO Yiannis Exarchos as a real production consideration. With 1,800 microphones deployed across venues, the crew had enough flexibility to quickly switch audio sources when drones entered the frame. Exarchos was direct: “I know that there’s a question around audio and the noise that this equipment generates, which is a reasonable question.” The operational workaround — selectively mixing or muting proximate microphones during drone shots — largely resolved the issue in broadcast.
AI technology running on Alibaba Cloud processed drone and conventional camera feeds in real time to power several new viewer features:
- 360° Real-Time Replay (first introduced at these Games for live events)
- Stroboscopic analysis breaking high-speed movements into individually analyzable frames
- Jump analytics in figure skating tracking height, airtime, and landing speed
- Comparison overlays in alpine skiing superimposing the current leader onto live footage of the next competitor
What the Athletes Said
Reaction from competitors across disciplines was notably positive. The athletes had in most cases already encountered FPV drones during pre-Games test events and training, so the equipment was familiar rather than startling.
The deeper impact was cultural. OBS CEO Yiannis Exarchos articulated the goal as allowing audiences — especially younger ones — to physically understand what elite winter sport feels like: “Now people can know what it feels to be riding [the bobsled], or to be going with the luge, or to be going downhill. They had the same exact feeling.” NBC Executive Producer Molly Solomon echoed this: “You’re sitting on the back of a skier. You’re right behind the skater. So it gives you the athlete perspective. Also, I think most of all, it’s the speed and the drop.”
What This Means for the Drone Industry
The Milan Cortina 2026 Games demonstrated several things that matter beyond the Olympics:
Broadcast-quality FPV at live event speeds is now commercially proven. For over a decade, the challenge in deploying FPV drones for professional sports was achieving broadcast-grade image quality while keeping pace with athletes. The combination of Blackmagic Micro Studio Camera G2 payloads, COFDM broadcast transmitters, and advances in drone frame design solved this problem definitively on the world’s most-watched sporting stage.
Sub-250g regulatory compliance is compatible with serious broadcast work. The micro drones used in sliding events weighed just 243 grams — under the threshold that triggers more stringent regulatory requirements in most jurisdictions. The fact that these aircraft performed at Olympic broadcast standards while remaining in the lightest weight class signals significant commercial implications for event production in regulatory-sensitive environments.
Sport-specialist pilots outperform technical-only operators. The Jonas Sandell model — hiring former athletes as drone pilots for their assigned sports — produced demonstrably superior footage. Understanding sport-specific timing, trajectory, and visual storytelling is not easily taught. The industry lesson is clear: for high-value live sports production, domain expertise matters as much as stick skills.
Three-person crew models are becoming the broadcast standard. The pilot/director/technician structure OBS used at Milan Cortina separates the cognitive loads of flight safety, creative direction, and technical support into dedicated roles. Expect this to become the operational template for any serious live drone broadcast team.
The FPV-to-mainstream pipeline has arrived. What began as a hobbyist and motorsport technique — FPV racing drones, cinewhoop cinematography — is now a legitimate, proven tool for global primetime broadcast. The technology maturity curve that has been building since roughly 2016 has finally landed at scale.
Looking Ahead: The 2030 French Alps and Beyond
The NBC Olympics team itself gestured toward the future at the close of Milan Cortina coverage, noting that “time will tell where advances in drone technology over the next four years take us in the French Alps in 2030.” The trajectory is clear: each successive Olympic cycle has expanded both the number of drones deployed and the scope of their application.
Pending regulatory and safety approvals that eluded final sign-off at Milan Cortina, indoor FPV coverage of figure skating, hockey, and curling may be on the table for 2030. Signal range improvements — the limiting factor that caused sliding-event drones to peel off after the third turn — will likely be addressed through relay transmitter infrastructure embedded in the course itself. Battery energy density improvements could extend flight time enough to cover a full luge run.
Conclusion
The 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Olympics were the moment FPV drone cinematography went fully mainstream — not as a novelty, but as a core, indispensable storytelling tool. Twenty-five aircraft, operated by expert crews in some of the world’s most demanding terrain and weather conditions, delivered footage that fundamentally changed how audiences understood the speed, risk, and skill involved in winter sport.
For professionals in the aerial imaging industry, Milan Cortina 2026 is the new benchmark. The hardware, the operational models, the integration with broadcast infrastructure, and the creative philosophy — “the third dimension of sport,” as OBS described it — are all now proven at the highest possible level of scrutiny.
The ice has been broken. The cameras are in the air.
SARVision covers emerging applications in aerial imaging, FPV cinematography, and drone technology for professional broadcast and commercial industries. Visit sarvision.us for more.
