With 100 days to go, northern Italy is preparing to host the Milan-Cortina Olympics, the most widespread winter sports in history.
The two best clusters of sports are Milan – the beating heart of Italy’s Industrial North – and Cortina D’Ampezz, an UpScale Wide Resort in the Dolomites mountain range. Visitors should expect a full day’s travel between the two places, which are more than 400 kilometers apart by road.
In addition, the athletes will compete in three other groups in the mountains, and the closing ceremony will be held in Verona, the largest city in the Veneto region in the north-east of Veneto.
The games will make the most of the existing infrastructure, even if some areas are renovated or built from scratch. Here’s a closer look at the locations:
Time machine
San Siro Stadium: The opening ceremony will be held at the Iconic’s Coconic Iconic Stadium, home of the cities’ two football teams – ac Milan and Illand Milan. It will be the final finishing touch to the historic venue, which is set to be demolished and replaced by a new sports stadium managed after the games.
Santagiulia Arena: The timeline is tight for a new 16,000-seat arena that will serve as hockey’s main arena for the games. A test event scheduled for December had to be moved, but organizers are confident it will be completed by the end of the year. New screening events are set for Jan. 9-11, less than a month before the first puck is dropped at the Olympics.
The first Olympic game at the Main Hockey Arena is the Women’s Preliminary Round 5, 5, one day before the opening ceremony.
“We are sure that we will have a good facility, and we will be ready to hold a test event in the first week of January, which is very important because it has never been used,” said CEO Andrea Varnier.
“We need to test the snow, which is temporary and not permanent, and everyone’s job, which will be visited a lot.”
The replica center, which is being built by private investors, is sweet to be the largest indoor arena in Italy and sees great people for those who come and enter the southeast of Milan.
Ice Park: While the hockey games will be held in the Santagiulia Arena, other games will take place in the exhibition area of Fiera Milano, which will also host speed skating. The Trade Fair Complex, which opened in 2005 in the north-west of Milan, will use temporary sports facilities.
The Ice-I-Ice Park will occupy four pavilions of the main exhibition center and includes a speed skating rink and the Rho Ice Hockey Arena, which has yet to be completed. The Speed Skating Stadium was commissioned in August and work on the ice was scheduled to begin on Wednesday.
Ice Skating Arena: Short track and figure skating will take place at the Forum Di Milano, a multipurpose arena used for basketball, hockey and tennis as well as live concerts. The 12,500-Pugnemicty area on the south-western edge of Milan was opened in 1990 and renovated in 2017, a year before the year it hosted the country’s world competition.
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Donlombe
Tofane Alpine Skiing Center: It is often referred to as the Queen or pearl of the Olympic Games in 1956. The iconic slope is a regular stop on the women’s World Cup circuit and hosted the world championship in 2021.
Curling Olympic Stadium: Curling will take place at the Olympic Ice Stadium, one of the legs of the 1956 Games, which also hosted the opening ceremony. The Arena – and Cortina as a whole – also served as a filming location for the 1981 James Bond film “For Your Eyes Only,” starring Roger Moore.
Cortina Sliding Center: The century-old sliding center has been rebuilt for the 2026 games at a cost of 118 million euros ($123 million US) amid opposition to the Olympics from around the country. The time frame was so tight that we discussed the option of the BENDU plan which would have required moving the walking, burning and skeleton events all the way to Lake Placid, NY
However, it turns out the gamble has paid off with the IOC even saying recently that the site is ‘next up.’ The track first secured certification in March and testing events took place in November. Completion of the roof and all facilities near the track is scheduled for November 5.
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The men’s skiing will take place on the formidable Stelvio course in Bormio, a popular combination on the World Cup circuit. Veteran Italian scanner Christof Innerhofer told the Associated Press that he can’t remember a strong run at the Olympics 30 years ago. The Stelvio Ski Center will also host ski slopes, which will be making their Olympic debut. Bormio is about 200 kilometers northeast of Milan.
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Livigno
Livigno, about an hour’s drive north of Bormio, will host these games, perhaps the most popular among young people. Snowboarding and freestyle skiing will be held at Livigro Snow Park and Livigro Aerials and Moguls Park, with 26 medals awarded. The small town of Valtellina, near the border with Switzerland, proudly unveiled the Aerials and Moguls Park last December, boasting that the latter brought the first place for the Olympics.
A storm
Surrounded by the peaks of the dolomites, the prestazzo will be a wonderful setting for ski jumping events. Predazzo, about 80 km southwest of Cortina, is the most popular municipality in the Val Di Fieemme, an area with a rich history of hosting the Nordic Skiing World Championship and World Cup races.
The ski jumping center is located on an area of 3,000 square meters and contains two ramps leading to international competitions as well as other training roads and other equipped spaces for athletes.
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Tesero
Tesero, less than 10 kilometers from Predazzo, will host cross-country skiing events. The cross-country skiing area opened in 1990, a year before the area hosted the Nordic World Ski Championship for the first time.
Antselva
The biathlon competition will take place in antreselva, organized in the mountains of South Tyrol and 60 km of tracks. The Antreselva Biathlon Arena has a rich history with the sport, as it has hosted several world championships since the 1970s.
It also hosts World Cup races every year. The city itself, close to the border with Austria, has a unique cultural heritage: more than 98 percent of the population speaks German as their mother tongue.
Lesson
The closing ceremony will take place in Our Histona Arena, a large Roman amphitheater built almost 2,000 years ago and used to host grand opera performances. It is a low presence in the main Piazza of Verona, which is a UNESCO World Heritage city.
Originally built to host 30,000 spectators in ancient Roman times, they currently hold half that for its world-famous summer festival. About 15,000 spectators will be allowed in the closing ceremony on February 22.
