The snowboarder Shaun White won’t be back for another Winter Games. Neither will the Dutch speedskating legends Ireen Wüst and Sven Kramer. Kamila Valieva probably doesn’t want to think about another Olympics for a long time. But the countdown for the next edition — in Milan and Cortina, Italy, in 2026 — began on Sunday the moment the Olympic flame went out in Beijing. Who will be the stars then? New York Times reporters who covered the Beijing Games offer a peek into the future.
Alysa Liu, United States
Nobody had a better time at the 2022 Olympics than the American figure skater Alysa Liu, who, at 16, was the youngest athlete to compete for the U.