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One married couple will spend Valentine’s Day going head-to-head in an Olympic medal event.
Belgium’s Kim Meylemans and Brazil’s Nicole Rocha Silveira are competing in the women’s skeleton event at the 2026 Milan Cortina Games — just over a year after they tied the knot.
Meylemans, 29, and Silveira, 31, made their 2026 Olympic debuts Friday in the first two heats of women’s skeleton. Meylemans sits in eighth place, 0.84 seconds off the lead, while Silveira is in 12th, 1.30 seconds off the lead.
Austria’s Janine Flock is in first place. The final two heats are scheduled for Saturday, after which medals will be awarded.
This isn’t the first time Meylemans and Silveira have squared off on the Olympic stage during their relationship. At the 2022 Beijing Games, Silveira and Meylemans finished 13th and 18th, respectively, in the competition. That was the Olympic debut for Silveira, while Meylemans also completed at the 2018 PyeongChang Games.
Meylemans and Silveira met in 2019 on the skeleton World Cup tour and went Instagram official with their relationship in December 2021. Silveira proposed to Meylemans in 2024 in Brazil and the couple got married in January 2025 in Canada’s Calgary, Alberta, which is where they live.
Meylemans and Silveira are one of several couples competing at the Milan Cortina Olympics.
The third heat of women’s skeleton is at 12 p.m. ET Saturday followed by the final heat at 1:35 p.m. ET. The action can be seen on NBC, Peacock and NBCOlympics.com.
IOC president Kristy Coventry got emotional when speaking about having to disqualify Ukrainian skeleton racer Vladylsav Heraskevych over his helmet remembering athletes who have died in Ukraine’s war with Russia.
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Eric Mullin
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