Olympic Countdown: Will Italy be ready for the 2026 Games?
For decades, the Olympic Games have been associated with enormous expenses, inflated budgets and the idleness of newly constructed facilities. Therefore, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) decided to focus on financially stable countries with ready infrastructure when selecting hosts for the Games.
The first competitions held under the new selection principles will be the summer Olympics 2024 in Paris. However, the French also significantly exceeded their initial budget, even though they utilized temporary venues and world-renowned arenas.
Italy, which will host the 2026 Winter Olympics, has also surpassed its initial budget during its five years of preparation. Current expenses have reached 5.7 billion euros, even though the Italians have also opted to partially utilize existing infrastructure.
The opening ceremony will take place at Milan's San Siro stadium, while the Games-2026 will conclude at the arena in Verona, and skiing and biathlon competitions will be held at venues in Val di Fiemme and Anterselva, which have previously hosted world championships.
At the same time, there are significant problems with new facilities: the bobsleigh and luge track in Cortina and the hockey arena in Milan are not ready, despite only 13 months remaining until the events start. Local media, without mincing words, call this a management failure.
Why has Italy found itself in a tight spot a year before the Games? Will the host cities be able to complete all the venues on time, and does the IOC have a Plan B?
The Saga of the Bobsleigh and Luge Track
In 2018-2019, when the Italians were bidding for the right to host the Games, the compactness of the facilities and their experience in organizing competitions played in their favor. The Olympic Games in Milan and Cortina d'Ampezzo will be the country's fourth after Rome (1960, summer), Turin (2006, winter), and Cortina d'Ampezzo (1956, winter).
1 In Sweden, which was Italy's main competitor, the summer Olympics were held only once - in 1912. Moreover, the Italians considered the presence of a bobsleigh and luge track as a trump card for their bid. The Swedes, on the other hand, proposed using a track in Latvia.
Ironically, this trump card has become a significant problem for the Italians. It turned out that the track in Cortina, built 100 years ago, has not been operational for many years. In the early 1980s, scenes for the James Bond film "For Your Eyes Only" were shot there, but now the facility is in a state of disrepair.
2 Initially, the Italian government allocated 50 million euros for the reconstruction of the facility, but it later became clear that the cost of the work would be at least double that. Because of this, the approval of the new budget and the announcement of the tender have been continuously delayed.
"We announced a tender for the construction of the bobsleigh and luge center, but no company responded. Therefore, we are now looking for alternative options," - admitted Giovanni Malagò, the head of the Games-2026 organizing committee.
In 2023, he declared that a new track would not be built due to high costs, and they would consider holding bobsleigh, luge, and skeleton competitions in Austria or Switzerland. The best option mentioned was Innsbruck, Austria - a city that has hosted the Games in 1964 and 1976 and has offered its services.
The Italians' desire to save money is quite justified. Back in 2020, scientists from Oxford University calculated that the Olympics are an excessively costly affair. The average level of Olympic-related expenses reaches 12 billion dollars, while non-sport-related expenses are several times higher. According to their data, the average budget overrun for summer games typically amounts to 213%, while for winter games, it is 142%.
This has also been the case with the Games-2026. In 2019, the budget for the competitions was 1.3 billion euros, but by May 2024, it had quadrupled to 5.7 billion euros. Amid the problems with the new bobsleigh track, Italy's Minister of Economy Giancarlo Giorgetti began to sound the alarm. "There are only two years left, time is moving incredibly fast, so it is almost impossible to stick to the schedule," - he stated in February 2024.
Giorgetti acknowledged that he "is starting to regret" his support for Italy's bid for the 2026 Olympics, but later retracted those words, saying it was a joke. In February 2024, the government finalized an agreement to construct a sliding track in Cortina for 80 million euros. Construction began less than two years before the start of the Games.
This turnaround is driven not only by a sense of national pride but also by serious criticism directed at Giorgia Meloni's government. The reputational risks of being a government that failed to host the Olympics entirely on its territory proved too great, so the funds were eventually found.
The 1,445-meter-long track with a cooling system is to be built by one of Italy's leading construction companies, Impresa Pizzarotti. The work is expected to be completed by March 2025, at which time the IOC will certify the facility.
These are unprecedented timelines for a project of this magnitude, so during its construction, they decided to forgo several adjacent auxiliary venues, including parking lots and catering areas.
Construction progress has been slowed by protests in Milan and Cortina. People fear that the facility will negatively impact nature and raise the cost of living in these cities. "Mountains are not an amusement park," - protesters chanted.
Disenchanted by the Italians' decision to build an expensive facility (its budget has already increased to 120 million euros), the IOC immediately warned that there would be no compromises on quality: the track must be ready for test runs by March 2025.
The Italians promise to meet the deadline. With the approaching deadline, work has accelerated, assured government commissioner Fabio Saldini after a visit from the IOC commission in November.
"The timelines are being adhered to due to the planned certification in March. The upper part of the track is nearing completion, with special attention being paid to the cooling system," - Saldini stated.
"The contractor is one of the best in Italy. They have provided guarantees regarding the timelines, as this is also a matter of their image. The competitions will take place on the track in Cortina; there is nothing more to discuss," - assured the mayor of Cortina, Gianluca Lorenzi.
Construction work is expected to continue throughout the winter. To protect against snowfall, the track will be covered with a net.
3 Despite the Italians' assurances, the IOC decided to take precautions. At the end of 2024, they selected Lake Placid in the USA as a backup venue, which will host the World Championships in bobsleigh and skeleton in 2025. If the track in Italy is not completed on time, the Olympic competitions in these sports will be held in the USA.
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