The Italian Olympic Committee (CONI) said that the flame of hope that the 2026 Winter Olympics will be in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo remains lit, TheLocal reported.
Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo are Italian regions that could welcome the 2026 Winter Olympics, however, Turin ruled out of the final project. The country has twice pulled out of bids to organise the Summer Olympics in recent years, for 2020 and 2024.
On Wednesday, a CONI delegation visits International Olympic Committee (IOC) headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland to presentation its the bid by Milan – Italy’s financial capital – and Cortina, a famous ski resort in the northern Italian Dolomites.
CONI president Giovanni Malago who has met with Secretary of State Giancarlo Giorgetti, who is in charge of sport, strongly believes that it is quite possible for Italy to win the bid. In fact, Italy has twice hosted the Winter Olympics, in Cortina in 1956 and Turin in 2006, with the 1960 Summer Games held in Rome.
The announcement comes after Giorgetti told the Senate on Tuesday that the three-city proposal “is dead”.
“Such an important thing as the Olympic Games should start on the right foot and this wasn’t the case. There wasn’t agreement so it stops here,”
said Giorgetti.
It follows infighting between the major of Milan Giuseppe Sala and his Turin counterpart Chiara Appendino concerning how the two cities in Italy’s industrial north would approach the bid. Preliminary bids for the 2026 Olympics will be presented at IOC meetings in Buenos Aires next month.
