How FPV drones are used at the 2026 Olympic Winter Games

At the XXV Olympic Winter Games in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo, FPV (First Person View) drones have changed the perspective on many high-speed sports such as alpine skiing, skeleton, and speed skating. They provide spectators with immersive images of the competitions. Drone pilots must meet special requirements to control drones traveling up to 160 km/h in a way that does not disturb the athletes, while still staying close to the action and avoiding accidents.

At the 2026 Olympic Winter Games, 25 drones will be deployed, including 15 FPV drones that have been custom-made for the Olympic Games and can reach high speeds of up to approximately 160 km/h. Their price is around 15,000 Euros each. The FPV drones are equipped with two front cameras. One delivers high-resolution images for television broadcasting, with the image and its synchronization controlled via a transmission vehicle. A second, lower-resolution camera provides the image for the pilot.

The FPV drones are controlled via radio remote controls with two joysticks. The live images from the camera are transmitted to the pilots' goggles, giving the pilot a view from the drone's perspective. The pilot usually sits in a shielded room to concentrate fully on their task without distraction. Blinking is almost entirely forbidden during operation. Pilots are also instructed to abort a pursuit flight if they have any doubts about safety. Artificial intelligence (AI) for control or aids such as crash avoidance systems are not used. They would only reduce the drone's responsiveness. Therefore, pilots fly exclusively manually.

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Different drones are used depending on the application and sport. For high-speed sports such as downhill skiing, speed skating disciplines, and skeleton and bobsleigh runs that take place indoors or in narrow ice channels, the FPV quadcopters used are small and weigh 243 g. Slightly larger quadcopters, on the other hand, are used for "slower" disciplines. Large drones exclusively provide aerial shots of the competition venues from a bird's-eye view and between runs.

Safety First

The FPV drone pilots for the Olympic Games, who are partly composed of FPV competition pilots and professional camera drone pilots, have prepared for their deployment through an extensive training program. For several weeks, they practiced flights in advance at the respective competition venues together with athletes. This fulfills two requirements: Firstly, it increases safety through gained flight routine, and secondly, the drones are flown in a way that does not disturb the athletes during the competition. Therefore, the drones are not allowed to fly in front of the athletes, must maintain a defined safety distance depending on the sport, and are sometimes only allowed to accompany the athletes for a portion of the course.

Most athletes therefore do not feel disturbed by the drones. Only the loud buzzing of the compact drones, caused by the high-speed small rotor blades, is clearly audible.

The drones are launched from designated spots at the competition venues. During speed skating, for example, they are launched from inside the oval. They also return there after their deployment. A technical crew is responsible for getting the drones ready again as quickly as possible for the next deployment, for example, by replacing batteries, which are kept in warming boxes in the winter cold. This is because the FPV drones have a runtime per battery charge of only about five minutes.

Impressive Images of Winter Sports

The drones deliver impressive images and beautifully show the challenges athletes must overcome in alpine skiing or in the ice channel. On the slalom and giant slalom course, for example, there is a small dip (compression) before the finish slope, where skiers must approach the next gate almost blindly so that the subsequent turn does not lead them off the track.

You can also see how precisely individual turns are executed in all alpine disciplines: sometimes standing longer, sometimes shorter on the edge, always skiing "on the pull" is what top skiers master. How much strength this requires is also clearly observable.

Good studies are also available for ski jumping, when the drone follows the athletes from a bird's-eye view. How much the arms, including the hands, are used during the flight was hardly noticeable before. Other perspectives, such as flying directly in front of the athlete, would be desirable – but this is ruled out for safety reasons.

In skeleton, however, the tracking camera is ideal. It clearly shows at the start how the tiny sleds are controlled by shifting weight and, in emergencies, with the feet on the ice. This is far less noticeable in the usual view from track cameras from above or from the front. Among other things, the riders push the skeleton precisely into the track with their shoulders.

All these shots go beyond what was presented just a few years ago with large TV cameras in hand – and of course without ski poles – during a demonstration of the course before the start. While this showed the course from the driver's perspective, it didn't show what they have to do to get to the finish quickly.

The images now possible directly from the ice channel are, incidentally, nothing new in themselves. As early as 1969, ski racer and fashion entrepreneur Willi Bogner raced down the disused bobsleigh track in Mürren, Switzerland, for the James Bond film "On Her Majesty's Secret Service." He had to balance a heavy 35-millimeter film camera – no comparison to the tiny drones today. Bogner subsequently worked on three more Bond films for ski scenes, also as director of these sequences.

(mack)