UW-Madison students learning in Italy this semester lived out their dreams at the Winter Games.

UW-Madison junior Delaney Kuny long had her eye on the 2026 Winter Olympics. The journalism major chose Florence, Italy, for her four-month study abroad program this year - not only for the good food and cultural immersion, but also to be able to travel to the Milano Cortina Olympic Games.

Kate Sutton, also a junior at UW-Madison, is participating in the Bocconi University exchange program in Milan. This program, offered through the Wisconsin School of Business, was more affordable than other options and has allowed Sutton to take courses she needs to finish her degree. The Olympics being in her base city - that was just a happy coincidence.

Whether by design or happenstance, UW-Madison students studying abroad in Italy and other parts of Europe had the opportunity in February to watch the Olympics in person, an experience not typically promised in the study-abroad portfolio.

Now, those lucky students want to share their experiences and takeaways with people back home. Both Kuny and Sutton speak to the energy and emotions that the Olympics created for fans. They felt even more invested in the events since they share connections with a few of the athletes, including ones that will join them back on the UW-Madison campus.

"[The Olympics] is a lot of bonding with people from different countries," Sutton says. "I felt very hopeful. Everyone was so positive."

Sutton worked as a student correspondent for a Milwaukee news station, providing student life content at the Olympics. Through this opportunity, she was able to see a variety of events, including the opening ceremony, the double luge in Cortina and multiple U.S. women's hockey games.

Like us all, she was amazed by the gold medal-winning women's hockey program. "Not only was I proud to be this woman from the United States, but on top of that, I'm proud of the fact that I go to a college where we have six players who are on the team," Sutton says.

Sutton will eventually join four of those Olympic champions back on campus: Laila Edwards, Caroline Harvey, Ava McNaughton and Kirsten Simms, the current Badgers who represented Team USA. Former Badgers Britta Curl-Salemme and Hilary Knight, who scored the dramatic game-tying goal in the gold medal game, also skated for the U.S.

Knowing how unique it would be to see her favorite players in the Olympics, Kuny also found tickets to a U.S. women's hockey game. When Team USA faced Finland in the preliminary round, Kuny says, "I actually teared up. I pictured myself playing hockey when I was little and thought of them that age, too, working so hard to get where they are."

For Kuny and Sutton, the Olympics represented more than the competitions themselves. Sutton was able to reconnect with a childhood friend who was competing in the double luge event. Kuny fulfilled her childhood dream of seeing her favorite players compete at the highest level.

The Olympics wrapped up a couple weeks ago, and Kuny and Sutton are both off traveling for their spring breaks - once again making most of their academic experience abroad. But the Olympics will stick with them forever, they say. Meeting people from all over the world in such a hopeful environment engendered a spirit that Kuny and Sutton want to return to Madison with.

And they'll be back for good hockey, of course.

"I feel like I had these high expectations for how studying abroad was going to feel," Sutton says. "Somehow my expectations were completely beat, strictly because I've been surrounded by this incredible experience where everyone from around the world is coming together in this one city that I'm grateful enough to be living in."