Milan-Cortina Olympics in 2026: A Winter Games of Spread-Out Sprawl
We are less than a year from the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy. Excitement for these Olympics will spread far and wide – as will the Games.
In a wonderfully descriptive Feb. 17 article headlined, “The 2026 Milan-Cortina Olympics will bring the world together – sort of,” the Washington Post painted a detailed picture of just how far apart some Olympic events will lie from others.
These Games will be a departure from prior Winter Olympics venues where indoor sports like hockey and skating were indoors in one city while outdoor events such as skiing, biathlon, snowboarding, bobsled, luge, etc., took place a couple hours away.
In the case of Milan-Cortina, the two hub cities are 256 miles (412 kilometers) apart. And that’s not all. Numerous other small towns and villages -- Bormio, Livigno, Tesero, Anterselva, and Predazzo -- will host events, too. What’s more, venues will stretch hundreds of miles from Milan across the Alps to the borders of Switzerland and Austria.
Getting from one venue to another during these 2026 Games will be no small feat. For TV viewers, no sweat. For spectators, a slog. Consider that Bormio will host men’s Alpine Skiing while the women are in Cortina d’Ampezzo. Convenient roadways between the two are non-existent, so those wanting to see both likely will depend on trains and buses running in a rectangle that includes Milan and Venice. The Washington Post reported these trips could take up to 12 hours!
For athletes, too, these Games will be a different creature. There won’t be just one or two Athletes’ Villages, but several.
That’s why the 2026 Winter Games are seen as unprecedented for their sprawling layout. Part of this is because Olympic organizers are looking to control costs and limit how many new facilities must be built for Milan-Cortina. Where there is new construction, such as with sliding tracks in Cortina, officials are racing to complete those jobs in time.
On the flip side, there will be benefits to the way these 2026 Games are staged. Visitors will get to know – and get to spend their money in – several scenic parts of Italy. Costs will be more efficiently managed. And the idea of stretching Winter Games across hundreds of miles may well be here to stay. The 2030 Games, for example, will reach from Nice on the south coast of France through the Alps on the border of Switzerland.
So sit back, enjoy the Games, watch newly-minted sports like mountaineering, and practice your pronunciations of picturesque places. As the Italians love to say: “Prego!”