Valentine's Day goal? Married skeleton duo compete for separate nations at Milan Cortina Winter Olympics

Valentine’s Day is in the air, but it will look different for Kim Meylemans and Nicole Rocha Silveira. Instead of dinner plans, the married couple will hurtle headfirst down an icy track, chasing Olympic medals for different countries.

At the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Olympics, Belgium’s Meylemans and Brazil’s Silveira are competing in the women’s skeleton event, lining up against each other less than a year after their wedding.After the first two heats, Meylemans sits eighth, 0.84 seconds off the lead. Silveira stands 12th, 1.30 seconds back. Austria’s Janine Flock leads heading into the final two heats, scheduled for Saturday.

Married rivals Kim Meylemans and Nicole Rocha Silveira face off in Olympic skeleton at Milan Cortina 2026

A year after marriage, skeleton stars Kim Meylemans and Nicole Silveira meet in Olympic showdown.

However, this is not their first Olympic meeting. At the 2022 Beijing Games, Rocha Silveira finished 13th and Kim Meylemans 18th. Meylemans also competed at the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics. Since then, both athletes have grown on the World Cup circuit. Meylemans recently secured Belgium’s first overall women’s skeleton World Cup title after medaling in six of seven events this season. Silveira delivered Brazil’s best ever Olympic sliding result in 2022 and later earned two World Cup bronze medals during the 2024 to 2025 campaign.

They met on the Skeleton World Cup tour in 2019. In 2021, they shared their relationship publicly. Silveira proposed in Brazil in 2024, and they married in Calgary in January 2025, where they now live and train.

Kim Meylemans and Nicole Silveira on their Olympic rivalry

Both athletes describe competition as intense yet grounded in partnership. Meylemans acknowledged her wife’s role in her success.“This team right here is something truly special though and a big part of this success, I wouldn’t have achieved this goal without them, especially my wife,” Meylemans wrote in an Instagram post.

“Don’t think anyone truly understands how much I needed her with me (pushing & supporting me) to achieve this.”Silveira also shared her thoughts. “Proud to be your wife and to walk this walk next to you,” she commented.Sharing the Olympic stage as rivals is a different experience altogether. “It’s very special to be able to share Olympic Games with your partner,” Silveira said. “It’s an extremely stressful, high-pressure period, so to have my person there as a comfort and safe space is of immense value to me, and also my performance.

It brings a sense of calmness and normality into the [craziest] weeks of our career.”The couple, however, has a clear Olympic goal. “At the end of the day, we're working as a team, so if one of us is on the podium, in our small situation then that's great for us,” Meylemans told Olympics.com last year.Catch their Olympic journey on NBC, Peacock, and NBCOlympics.com, with the third heat at 12 p.m. ET Saturday and the final at 1:35 p.m. ET.