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One year from today, athletes from around the world will descend on Milan’s San Siro for the opening ceremony of the 2026 Winter Olympic Games, marking the start of 17 days of competition which organisers hope will emulate the success of last year’s summer equivalent in Paris.
Andrea Varnier, the chief executive of the Milan-Cortina organising committee, previously said his organisation gained a “boost of enthusiasm” from the mega event in France, which has been widely credited with breathing much-needed life into the Olympic movement after viewership had dropped off during previous Covid-hit editions of the Games.
Indeed, there are some parallels with Paris 2024 which, after the pandemic-delayed Tokyo 2020, needed to not just remind the world of the Olympics’ appeal, but also reignite enthusiasm among prospective hosts, commercial partners, and television viewers.
Milan-Cortina 2026 may not be coming with the same baggage as some recent editions of the Winter Olympics, which have had to contend with Covid restrictions, political tensions and even threats of a boycott, but there are still several logistical, financial, and environmental considerations organisers need to address before the Games get underway next February.
“Let’s be clear, you always have the highest level of scrutiny from anyone,” Christophe Dubi, executive director of the Olympic Games for the International Olympic Committee (IOC), tells SportsPro. “We can see that mounting, especially because one year to go is where it all comes together.
“We might not have the same kind of conversations [for the Winter Olympics] as we had in Covid times or for some of the hosts in the past because [Milan-Cortina 2026] seems to fit more naturally within this known environment.
“But when it comes to the event itself, pressure is definitely on.”
A new-look Winter Olympics
This will be the first Winter Olympics staged in Europe since Torino 2006, after a joint bid from Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo saw off another joint proposal from Swedish cities Stockholm and Åre.
The Alps may be familiar territory for the Games, with Italy preparing to host for a third time, but Milan-Cortina 2026 will be the first Summer or Winter Olympics to officially be hosted in two cities. It will also be the first Winter Games since Sarajevo 1984 to have its opening and closing ceremonies in different venues, as well as the first Olympics under a new IOC president, who is set to be elected in March.
Milan-Cortina 2026 will use 25 event venues dotted across four clusters – Milan, Cortina, Valtellina and Val di Fiemme – in northern Italy. More than 90 per cent of the venues already exist or will be temporary, which is another thing that next year’s Winter Olympics will share in common with Paris 2024.
That approach is due to one of the first changes made by outgoing IOC president Thomas Bach, who upon taking office in 2013 set out to shakeup the Olympic bidding process, which he felt asked “too much too early” of cities pitching for the Games. Since then, the IOC has made efforts to make the Summer and Winter Games a more attractive, economically viable proposition in an effort to attract a larger selection of potential hosts.
The result of that approach next year will be a significantly more regionally spread-out event than many other editions of the Winter Olympics, which historically have seen snowsport events held across one mountain resort, with ice-based sports taking place at city facilities.
As an example, freestyle skiing and snowboarding will be taking place in Livigno, which is nearly a five-hour drive from events like alpine skiing and curling in Cortina. While that will likely create operational challenges and longer journey times for officials and fans travelling between venues, organisers believe there are significant benefits for the hosts.
“You reduce the complexity, you reduce the cost, you reduce the risk,” explains Dubi. “[For example] in going to Cortina and using the [Olimpia delle] Tofane you know that it’s tried and tested, from the wiring to the volunteers, from hospitality to snow production.”
Dubi also points out that using existing venues accustomed to staging elite level competitions usually translates into large crowds.
“You are in territories that are huge fans of hosting the events,” he continues. “And I don’t say we should not be proud of everything we’ve done in Asia and elsewhere, but it’s true that the feeling is slightly different [for Milan-Cortina 2026].
“You know that the crowd will turn up. You know that they’re going to be cheering for every athlete and they’re going to stay for the whole duration of the races.”
Venue delays and cost concerns
Milan-Cortina’s commitment to being cost efficient and infrastructure ready is being tested. Upon being named host in 2019, the projected budget for the event was €1.58 billion (US$1.65 billion) but has reportedly risen to well over €2 billion (US$2.1 billion), primarily due to delays, increased construction costs and logistical issues.
Going over budget is a familiar story for hosts of both summer and winter Games, with a 2024 University of Oxford study estimating that, since 1960, the average cost of hosting has been triple the bid price.
In the case of Milan-Cortina 2026, costs to renovate Cortina’s sliding centre, which is set to host bobsleigh, luge, and skeleton events, have reportedly nearly doubled to €80 million (US$83 million). If the venue is not finished in time, Lake Placid, which hosted the Games in 1980, has been earmarked as a backup, though Varnier has said he is “very confident” it won’t be necessary to move events to the US.
Reuters reported this week that builders are continuing to work to meet a March deadline, which is when athletes are scheduled to test the sliding centre for the first time. Cortina mayor Gianluca Lorenzi has also moved to play down the prospect of the sliding events taking place elsewhere.
"There are backups for everything but..., as of today, a Plan B for the bob races does not exist anymore because it has been made clear the sliding centre is being built here," Lorenzi said, as reported by Reuters.
"I am not worried... Technicians are telling us the centre is going to be ready."
There have also been delays to the new PalaItalia Santa Giulia, which is staging ice hockey, and construction costs for the arena have risen from an initial €180 million (US$187 million) to nearly €300 million (US$312 million), according to Il Giorno.
“Yes, it’s important that we maintain the budget,” says Dubi. “Obviously, Covid, inflation and everything [else] has to be factored in. But, as per Paris where we could remain on target and on budget, that's most definitely what we are all fighting for.
“That's incredibly important, this is also how you can attract a future host.”
Crucial to the event running to budget will be sponsorship income. The organising committee’s revenue target for Milan-Cortina 2026 is €550 million (US$572 million) across four domestic partnership tiers. The premium partner tier currently consists of energy companies Enel and Eni, state-owned railway FS Italiane Group, postal service provider Poste Italiane, and sports equipment brand Salomon.
Brands signed up across the various other tiers include Emporio Armani’s EA7, telecommunications firm TIM and cloud-based software company Salesforce.
Revenue will also come from tickets, which go on sale on 6th February to commemorate the one-year-to-go mark. As of 17th January, there had been 347,000 registrations on Milan-Cortina’s ticketing portal, with more than 70 per cent of those coming from overseas. Organisers say most international interest is coming from the US, Germany, the UK, France, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Canada.
Meanwhile, On Location, which is overseeing the hospitality programme for the Winter Olympics for the first time after managing premium ticket sales for Paris 2024, saw thousands of people sign up for its priority access deposit programme, with particularly strong interest so far in ice hockey, biathlon, figure skating and overnight packages.
PalaItalia Santa Giulia (pictured left in October 2024) and the sliding centre (pictured right in January 2025) are the two venues being built for Milan-Cortina 2026, though there have been concerns over whether the latter will be ready in time (Image credit: Getty Images)
Setting a gold standard for Olympic sustainability
Given the existential threat climate change poses to winter sports, Dubi says Milan-Cortina 2026 has “no choice” but to be “best in class” with its sustainability initiatives. That will be particularly pertinent after Paris 2024 organisers put in place a range of measures to reduce its impact on the environment, reducing the carbon footprint of last year’s event by 54.6 per cent compared to London 2012 and Rio 2016.
“You have to have your renewable sources of energy, you have to have the most efficient use of water going from Milano to Cortina, you're going to be using the train before hopping on a bus,” Dubi continues. “We should be proud of this.
“Is [environmental sustainability] a factor to integrate that is imposing more on an organising committee than 15 years ago? No doubt. But it's really doing the right thing.”
The overarching plan is for Milan-Cortina 2026 to set an example in how to sustainably run an international winter sports event and set the standard for the future. As well as the use of existing infrastructure, the Olympic Village will transition into a ‘self-sustaining neighbourhood’, while a greenhouse gas emissions reduction and mitigation plan has also been developed.
However, groups have expressed concern about the impact that Milan-Cortina 2026 will have on the environment and requested greater communication from the organising committee and Italian government. Some residents of Milan and Cortina are also fearful that infrastructure projects for the Games will damage natural ecosystems.
Milan-Cortina 2026 chief executive Andrea Varnier is leading the local organising committee responsible for delivering next year's Winter Olympics (Image credit: Getty Images)
The official Milan-Cortina 2026 website states that the main legacy for the Games will be ‘more exercise for everyone and local sustainable economic development’, both of which could probably be applied to any other past or future Olympics.
“What are great Games in the end?” ponders Dubi. “We [need to] have left a positive impact in many regions across northern Italy [and made] it a force to be reckoned with in winter sports. So the Games, in other words, have been helpful for the host community and the host community have been helpful to the Games.”
Dubi also cites the need for “full venues” and “enthusiastic crowds” to show the Winter Olympic brand is firing on all cylinders. He is hoping for a “party” that shows the Games are “for everyone”.
Perhaps the true legacy of Milan-Cortina 2026, though, will be felt outside of Italy. The climate crisis means the IOC is looking as far as 2050 to identify which regions could still stage the Winter Olympics by that point and which will struggle, raising more existential questions about the future of the event. There have even been murmurings a select pool of hosts could be rotated.
“We are going to have to have a more serious conversation about one specific venue, perhaps on [different] continents, that we then rotate to make it more sustainable so that we can keep the Winter [Olympics] going,” Kirsty Coventry, one of seven candidates vying for the IOC presidency, told journalists last month.
The French Alps and Salt Lake City will host the Winter Olympics in 2030 and 2034, respectively. But if rotating hosts is the long-term solution for securing the Games’ future, Milan-Cortina needs to show that the event is still worth fighting for.
“The great Games are those where you are audacious,” says Dubi. “Paris did a lot in this respect.
“Great Games also mean that we have been rigorous. This is boring, but you cannot have people having fun in the streets of Milano if you don't deliver top notch operations.”
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