When the 2022 Beijing Games kick off with the opening ceremony on Friday, some of the Winter Olympics’ brightest stars will be making their return.

Here are five to look out for as the Games get underway this week:

1. Ester Ledecká

Ester Ledecká made history in 2018 when she became the first athlete to win two gold medals at the same Winter Olympics in two different types of equipment (skis and snowboard). The Czech snowboarder and skier won the super-G in alpine skiing and then took home gold in the parallel giant slalom. Just the second woman to win Olympic gold in two separate disciplines, she was also the first to do it at the same Olympics.

Ledecká has continued to alternate between the two sports and remains the most dominant snowboard racer in the world. Since 2018, she has entered 14 World Cup competitions in snowboarding, finishing in the top three 13 times. While she hasn’t had as much success in skiing, she still finished in the top 10 in the World Cup standings in both 2020 and 2021. Ledecká will look to defend her gold medal beginning with the parallel giant slalom on Tuesday, Feb. 8.

CHLOE. KIM.@ChloeKim put down a DOMINANT first run to lead the standings with a 90.25 in the women's halfpipe final.@usskiteam | #LaaxOpen pic.twitter.com/Lh2aWohTIp

— NBC Olympics (@NBCOlympics) January 15, 2022

2. Chloe Kim

One of the breakout stars in PyeongChang, Chloe Kim is the reigning Olympic champion on halfpipe. She became the youngest woman to win an Olympic snowboarding gold when she captured the title at 17 years old in 2018. Her near-perfect score of 98.25 points on her final run was almost 10 points ahead of second-place finisher Liu Jiayu. As if that wasn’t enough, she also became the youngest woman to ever land two 1080-degree spins in a row at an Olympics.

She took nearly two years off from the sport following her 2018 Olympic gold-medal run to tend to an ankle injury. But since returning in 2021, she’s won every competition she has entered in, including the 2021 X Games and the 2021 World Championships. In mid-January, she won the halfpipe event at the Laax Open, making her the heavy favorite entering Beijing. She’ll look to defend her halfpipe medal beginning Wednesday, Feb. 9.

3. USA women’s ice hockey

In 2018, the U.S. women’s hockey team won gold for the first time since the 1998 Olympics, taking down Canada 3-2 in a shootout in the championship game.

While the Lamoureux sisters have since retired, many of the stars from that team are making their return in 2022, including captain Kendall Coyne Schofield and gold-medal winning goaltender Maddie Rooney. Stars Hilary Knight and Amanda Kessel are also back for what could be their final Olympics.

The U.S. team will look to repeat its gold-medal run, and avenge its overtime loss to Canada at the 2021 World Championships, starting Thursday against Finland.

This is how @MikaelaShiffrin just won four of the seven women's World Cup giant slalom events held in @courchevel 👸🏻👸🏻👸🏻👸🏻#fisalpine pic.twitter.com/BcW6wVrUUv

— FIS Alpine (@fisalpine) December 21, 2021

4. Mikaela Shiffrin

One of the top skiers in the world, Mikaela Shiffrin is gunning for the podium once again in Beijing. She won gold in slalom at the 2014 Sochi Olympics and followed it up with a gold in giant slalom four years later. With 47 victories in World Cup slalom, she’s the winningest skier in a single alpine discipline in history, male or female.

Heading into her third Olympics, Shiffrin will look to medal in every skiing event in Beijing. She had an up-and-down World Cup season, coming back from a back injury and being diagnosed with COVID-19 while battling rival Petra Vlhová. But on paper, she’s a multi-medal threat. If she wins more than one medal in Beijing, she’ll pass Julia Mancuso as the most decorated American female Alpine skier. If she wins three, she’ll tie Bode Miller for the most Olympic medals by an American skier with six.

Her first event, giant slalom, gets underway on Sunday.

With eight medals to her name, Arianna Fontana is the most decorated female short track skater in Olympic history.

From 🥉 at Vancouver 2010 to 🥇 at PyeongChang 2018, recap her incredible progression in the 500m event.#StrongerTogether | @AryFonta pic.twitter.com/q60ZDP89T0

— Olympics (@Olympics) January 19, 2022

5. Arianna Fontana

Italian short track speed skater Arianna Fontana is headed into her fifth Olympics in Beijing, looking to build on her gold-medal performance in the 500m short track in 2018. With 45 European Championships medals and eight Olympic Games medals, she’s the most decorated female short track speed skater in Olympic history.

In PyeongChang, Fontana also won silver in the team event and bronze in the 1000m event, giving her an Olympic medal at every contested distance. She’ll look to add to her medal count in Beijing and further cement her place in history, beginning with the 500m heats on Saturday.

Adding to their already historic season, 2024/25 WSL champions and 2025 League Cup winners Chelsea FC handed Manchester United a 3-0 defeat in Sunday's 2025 FA Cup final, completing the club's second-ever domestic treble.

Though the Blues first claimed an elusive treble in the 2020/21 season, this year's roster did so without dropping a single match in any of the three domestic competitions.

"I could not have expected this," said first-year Chelsea manager Sonia Bompastor about her debut success leading the Blues. "It is almost ideal in terms of domestic dominance."

To clinch that dominance, Chelsea upended the defending FA Cup champs Manchester United at London's iconic Wembley Stadium behind a brace from French fullback Sandy Baltimore and a header from USWNT attacker Catarina Macario.

Baltimore gave Chelsea the lead by slipping a late first-half penalty past 2024/25 WSL Golden Glove winner and USWNT goalkeeper prospect Phallon Tullis-Joyce, and the Blues never relented, with second-half sub Macario doubling their scoreline in the 84th minute before Baltimore tacked on a final goal in stoppage time.

"It's a very emotional day," an emotional Macario told the broadcast after finishing her first season following a long ACL recovery. "It's a trophy we always wanted to win."

"All the credit to my players," said Bompastor. "We showed our mentality and our values in this game so we ended the season in an almost perfect scenario – we won, we were playing at Wembley, the stadium was nearly sold out, and we had a strong performance and result against a strong opponent."

"It is an almost ideal way to finish the season."

FA Cup crowds prove sustained demand for women's soccer

Chelsea FC's undefeated treble-winning season wasn't the only notable victory on Sunday, as the FA Cup final drew a crowd of over 74,000 fans for the third straight year.

Sunday's 74,412 attendance mark was just shy of both last year's crowd of 76,082 and the 77,390 fans who watched Chelsea defeat the Red Devils in 2023 — all well beyond the tournament final's previous record of 49,094 attendees achieved in 2022.

Fueled by the football fervor following England's 2022 Euro victory — the country's first international trophy, men's or women's, since the 1966 men's World Cup — the 2023 FA Cup final still stands as the largest crowd at a domestic women's soccer match across all nations.

With Sunday's match joining the over-74,000 attendance club, it's clear the post-Euros enthusiasm wasn't a blip, but a boost to the continued growth and sustained success of the women's game.

While most WNBA stars hit the court running this weekend, a few saw their 2025 campaigns already shortened as teams released season-opening injury reports.

Phoenix forward Kahleah Copper will miss four to six weeks of play, the Mercury reported on Saturday, after the 2024 Olympic gold medalist underwent successful arthroscopic surgery on her left knee last week.

Another knee injury has LA's Rae Burrell sidelined for the next six to eight weeks, after the fourth-year guard took a knock to the right leg just 41 seconds into the Sparks' 2025 debut win over Golden State.

On Friday, the Mystics released updates on both second-year forward Aaliyah Edwards and rookie guard Georgia Amoore. While another assessment of the Unrivaled 1v1 runner-up's back injury will occur in two more weeks, Washington confirmed that the Australian standout will miss the entire 2025 WNBA season after undergoing a successful surgery to repair her right ACL.

Seattle's Katie Lou Samuelson is also out for the full 2025 campaign, with the 27-year-old Storm forward recovering from last week's successful surgery after tearing her right ACL in practice on May 1st.

Kitley makes long-awaited WNBA debut as Brink eyes return

In more uplifting news, LA's Cameron Brink is on track to return to the Sparks sometime next month, one year after her standout rookie season came to a halt in a left ACL tear.

Already celebrating, however, is 2024 second-round draftee Elizabeth Kitley, who battled back from injury to make her WNBA debut and score her first league points in Las Vegas's Saturday loss to New York.

The Aces took a draft chance on Kitley, despite the center suffering an ACL tear in her final NCAA postseason. In response, the former Virginia Tech star successfully translated her year-long delayed shot at a pro career by surviving Las Vegas's brutal 2025 roster cuts.

Notably, Kitley's close friend and collegiate on-court counterpart with the Hokies is the aforementioned Amoore, who will aim for a rookie-season redo of her own next year.

The No. 1 Kansas City Current strengthened their grip on the 2025 NWSL Shield race on Friday, taking down now-No. 3 Orlando 1-0 on the road to earn a four-point lead atop of the NWSL table.

Reigning league MVP Temwa Chawinga scored the top-table game's lone goal. With five goals in nine matches, Chawinga now sits in a four-way tie for second place in the 2025 Golden Boot race.

"If you don't come with heart, you have no chance," Current head coach Vlatko Andonovski said after the match. "And today I think we showed heart."

Kansas City now stands 7-2-0 on the season, putting the NWSL Shield firmly within their grasp.

Kansas City's rise aside, the weekend's biggest drama hovered near the playoff line.

Gotham FC fell to No. 2 San Diego 1-0 on Friday, sending the Bats skidding to No. 8 on a three-game winless streak while boxing No. 9 North Carolina out of playoff contention — despite the rising Courage securing their third win in four games with Saturday's 2-0 victory over last-place Chicago.

"Obviously, we were hot for a little bit, and teams have slumps all the time, so now it's just finding a way," Gotham midfielder Jaelin Howell said of the team's recent struggles.

While some rebuilds soar, last year's postseason contenders are still finding their way as the league moves into the second third of the 2025 season.

Indiana's 35-point blowout win over Chicago wasn't Saturday's only newsmaker, as a controversial foul on Sky forward Angel Reese by Fever guard Caitlin Clark sparked intense off-court conversations and a WNBA investigation into subsequent fan misconduct.

Clark's third-quarter foul against Reese incited a brief dust-up between the second-year stars, with Clark's offense upgraded to a Flagrant 1 while Reese and Fever center Aliyah Boston picked up a pair of offsetting technicals for their reactions.

"Basketball play. Refs got it right. Move on," Reese said after the game, while Clark told reporters, "It was just a good play on the basketball. I'm not sure what the ref saw to upgrade it, and that's up to their discretion."

Immediately following the flagrant ruling, however, Indiana fans allegedly directed racially charged remarks toward Reese, prompting the league to open an investigation on Sunday.

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Officials acknowledged allegations of racist abuse inside Gainbridge Fieldhouse, saying the WNBA "strongly condemns racism, hate, and discrimination in all forms," and that they're "looking into the matter."

"We stand firm in our commitment to providing a safe environment for all WNBA players," said Pacers Sports & Entertainment CEO Mel Raines, who oversees the Fever, in a statement.

"We will do everything in our power to protect Chicago Sky players, and we encourage the league to continue taking meaningful steps to create a safe environment for all WNBA players," echoed Sky CEO and president Adam Fox.

Unfortunately, this isn't the first time Fever-related fan misconduct has taken center stage, as last season's storylines start to spill over into the 2025 WNBA campaign.

In anticipation of the issue, the league launched "No Space for Hate" on Thursday, describing the campaign as "a multi-dimensional platform designed to combat hate and promote respect across all WNBA spaces — from online discourse to in-arena behavior."