The International Olympic Committee (IOC) said preparations for the Milan-Cortina 2026 Olympic Winter Games are progressing well, but on the final day of a Coordination Commission inspection in Italy Friday cautioned that venue development must be watched closely in order to meet the tight timelines.
With less than two years until the Games are scheduled to open, IOC Executive Director Christophe Dubi told reporters “we implore that each day is respected because these timelines are tight, that we are very clear. But it is not complex, and when it comes to Games preparations [Italy is] miles ahead compared to any previous organizing committees.”
Dubi pointed to the experience and expertise of local organizers who continuously host world class events in existing venues and are well positioned to do the same for the Olympics. However concerns were raised on the development and construction of new facilities, especially the sliding track replacement in Cortina where construction only began this week.
IOC officials set the hard deadline of March 2025 for the completion and certification of the new track for bobsled, luge and skeleton that if achieved would be record-breaking for such a project. Due to the risks and questionable legacy use of the facility, the IOC had urged organizers not to build the track and instead use one of the existing venues located outside of Italy.
Coordination Commission Chair, Norwegian Kristin Kloster told reporters that the IOC would respect the decision of Italian authorities to build the sliding center but cautioned “our concerns about the delivery of the sliding center within the required timeline and the viability of its legacy are known and they have been reiterated, at the same time noting the request of the development of a plan B.”
Milan-Cortina 2026 CEO Andrea Varnier insisted the new track in Cortina “would make the event much more successful” and legacy plans were in development to back up the project, at the IOC’s insistence.
“Financially having events abroad would be expensive for the organizing committee,” Varnier underlined as another reason to continue with the construction of the track.
Dubi relented that the track now had an inevitable future in Cortina, and whether that would be as an Olympic legacy or not is still to be determined. IOC officials did not disclose any project milestones that could trigger the move to a backup plan other than the March 2025 requirement.
“We have been working with the [organizing committee] on different plans,” Dubi said, referring to a possible plan B that would see sliding at the Games take place in Switzerland, Austria, Germany or even as far as Lake Placid, United States.
Varnier told reporters that Milan-Cortina is on the same page as the IOC explaining “when we decided to continue with the track in Cortina we thought it was necessary to have a plan B and to be able to use a track that was already in operation and it would therefore have to be outside Italy.”
The Commission also raised concerns about the construction progress of the Livigno snow park, the Olympic Village and an ice hockey arena.
Kloster emphasized “a day lost is a risk increase, and some projects simply have no buffer.”
Milan-Cortina 2026 President Giovanni Malagò accepted those concerns with confidence.
“We have deadlines and those deadlines are tight,” he said adding “is that anything new for Italy?”
Dubi confirmed that Italy’s Lombardy and Trentino regions have expressed interest in bidding for the 2028 Winter Youth Olympic Games, leveraging the legacy from 2026. He expects a host contract to be signed for that edition by the end of this year or early 2025.
The Milan-Cortina Winter Games will run from February 6 to February 22, 2026.
