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CORTINA D'AMPEZZO, ITALY - FEBRUARY 12: Austin Florian of Team United States participates during Men's Skeleton Heat 1 on day six of the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic games at Cortina Sliding Centre. (Richard Heathcote/Getty Images)
Connecticut native and skeleton athlete Austin Florian finished as the top-performing individual American athlete in his first Winter Olympic Games, with the men's singles competition wrapping up Friday.
Skeleton, an Olympic sliding sport where athletes race headfirst through an ice track, determines a winner based on the fastest aggregate racer in four different runs across two event days. Florian actually set two event records for the fastest start time in each of the first two runs - skeleton athletes begin their race with a 40-meter sprint to build speed - but couldn't maintain this historic pace throughout the course, with his best performance being a ninth-place finish in Run 2.
While Florian couldn't snap the United States' 12-year drought at the singles medal podium, the Southington native likely captured more attention than any of his competitors over the past two days for his homage to Venom, a superhero from the Spiderman franchise.
Florian's helmet captured the character's famous toothy grin and was shared on social media by a wide variety of popular sports publications, including Bleacher Report, ESPN SportsCenter and Yahoo Sports!
Initially, Florian's winter sport of choice was skiing, earning All-American honors in his junior and senior seasons at Clarkson University, and it was during his time at the upstate New York university that he stumbled upon the sport of skeleton during a visit to nearby Lake Placid. The Southington High graduate is now a decade into his international skeleton career and qualified for his first Olympics this winter at age 31 after narrowly missing out on the 2022 games.
Florian will be better positioned to medal at the Skeleton Mixed Team event scheduled for Sunday, where he will compete alongside fellow American racer Mystique Ro. It's the first time Mixed Team skeleton will be held at the Olympics, with Florian and Ro teaming up to earn gold in the doubles event last year at the World Championships. The Skeleton Mixed Team event will begin at noon and will be broadcast on Peacock.
This article originally published at CT native Austin Florian is 12th in skeleton at the Winter Olympics, goes viral for 'Venom' helmet.
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