2026 Winter Olympics

The 2026 Winter Olympics, officially the XXV Olympic Winter Games and commonly known as Milano Cortina 2026, were an international winter multi-sport event held in northern Italy from February 6 to 22, 2026, with competition beginning on February 4. Named for Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo, the Games distributed competitions among urban ice arenas and Alpine resorts rather than concentrating them in a single host city. They marked Italy’s third Winter Olympics, following Cortina d’Ampezzo in 1956 and Turin in 2006. (en.wikipedia.org)

The programme comprised 116 medal events across 16 disciplines, including the Olympic debut of ski mountaineering and additional women’s and mixed events. The Games combined changes to winter sport competition with a geographically dispersed hosting model that placed particular importance on existing venues, regional transport, and coordination between host communities. Their history encompasses the host-selection process, preparations and financing, sporting results, ceremonies, broadcasting, and the environmental and infrastructure legacy of staging the Olympic Games across northern Italy. (olympics.com.au)

Bid and host selection

The Italian candidature developed during 2018 from a proposed partnership involving Milan, Turin and Cortina d’Ampezzo. On August 1, the Italian National Olympic Committee (CONI) unanimously approved submitting a three-city project, intended to combine the participating territories’ sporting facilities and expertise. That arrangement did not survive disagreements over the cities’ respective roles: Turin maintained its preference for an autonomous candidature, and the three-city proposal lost national-government support in September. The project subsequently proceeded as Milan–Cortina. On October 9, 2018, the International Olympic Committee (IOC), meeting in Buenos Aires, admitted Milan–Cortina to the candidature stage alongside Calgary and Stockholm. Milan’s involvement also required moving the host-election session, originally allocated to Milan, to Lausanne to comply with Olympic Charter requirements. (coni.it)

CONI president Giovanni Malagò led the candidature, with Olympic fencing champion Diana Bianchedi serving as its coordinator. The proposed division of responsibilities combined national sporting leadership with regional financial commitments and municipal hosting obligations. Lombardy and Veneto were the principal regional sponsors and supplied guarantees for venues and services; Milan and Cortina were to sign the Host City Contract alongside CONI. The national government provided guarantees covering security, customs, immigration and other public services. The sporting plan extended beyond the two named municipalities to established mountain centres, including Bormio, Antholz and Val di Fiemme, rather than concentrating every competition around a single host city. (coni.it)

The final ballot opposed Milan–Cortina to Stockholm–Åre, representing Sweden. At the 134th IOC Session in Lausanne on June 24, 2019, the Italian delegation’s presentations included Malagò, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, Milan mayor Giuseppe Sala and Veneto president Luca Zaia, alongside athletes including Sofia Goggia, Michela Moioli and Arianna Fontana. Milan–Cortina won by 47 votes to 34. The official voting record listed 82 voting cards distributed, 81 valid votes and one abstention, including blank votes; the required majority was 41. The decision also awarded the associated 2026 Winter Paralympics to the Italian hosts. (coni.it)

Venue reuse was a central argument of the successful bid. At the time of the election, its masterplan classified 13 of 14 competition venues—93 per cent—as existing or temporary. This was a candidature-stage measure, not a retrospective description of the facilities ultimately delivered. The proposal drew on locations already experienced in staging World Cup and world-championship competitions, including Cortina, Bormio, Antholz and Val di Fiemme. It followed the IOC’s Olympic Agenda 2020 principle of using existing or temporary facilities where demand did not justify new permanent construction, while presenting the connection between metropolitan and mountain areas as an instrument of regional tourism and economic development. (coni.it)

The award made the 2026 Games Italy’s fourth hosting of the Olympic Games and its third Winter Olympics. Cortina had staged the 1956 Winter Games, Rome the 1960 Summer Games and Turin the 2006 Winter Games. The joint candidature thus paired a previous Winter Olympic host with Milan, while extending the competition plan across several established northern Italian winter-sport destinations. (coni.it)

Organisation, financing, and preparations

Fondazione Milano Cortina 2026, established on 9 December 2019, was responsible for planning, financing and delivering both the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. During the final preparations it was led by president Giovanni Malagò and chief executive Andrea Varnier. Its institutional partners included the Italian National Olympic Committee (CONI), Italian Paralympic Committee, municipalities of Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo, Lombardy and Veneto regions, and autonomous provinces of Trento and Bolzano. These arrangements distinguished event organisation from the provision of permanent facilities: the foundation managed Games services, while public authorities and infrastructure delivery bodies undertook construction programmes. (gstatic.olympics.com)

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) supervised Olympic preparations through its coordination arrangements; international federations specified the technical requirements for their sports. CONI also organised Italy’s delegation, including entries, accreditation and team logistics, separately from the foundation’s responsibilities towards all participating delegations. SIMICO, incorporated on 22 November 2021, served as a procurement and contracting authority for Olympic infrastructure, although provincial authorities, road operator ANAS and railway organisations also implemented projects directly. The delivery model incorporated local Event Delivery Entities, combining established organising teams in host communities with Olympic and Paralympic specialists. The Paralympics shared the organising foundation, rather than having an entirely separate organising committee, but remained under the distinct authority of the International Paralympic Committee (IPC). (gstatic.olympics.com)

Financial planning separated the foundation’s lifetime operating budget from capital expenditure. On 26 March 2024, its board confirmed an approximately €1.6 billion operating plan, noting that sponsorship supplied in goods and services—“value in kind”—increased both recorded revenue and expenditure. A subsequent board process, beginning on 27 March and concluding on 10 April 2025, approved approximately €1.7 billion; breaking even remained an objective, not an established outcome. Separately, SIMICO’s 2024 financial statements described a public works programme of 94 interventions costing approximately €3.4 billion. That programme covered sports facilities and associated infrastructure and was neither the foundation’s operating budget nor a statement of expenditure already incurred. Its scope also differed from privately financed projects, including Milan’s Olympic village and hockey arena. (confcommerciomilano.it)

The foundation’s July 2024 report described an anticipated revenue mix of 37% IOC resources, 37% national partnerships, 13% ticket sales and 13% licensing royalties, lotteries and other income. Sponsorship combined cash with contracted supplies; licensing generated royalties from authorised merchandise. These were planning proportions rather than final receipts. The report recorded a €33.7 million loss for 2023 and explained the timing mismatch between preparation costs and revenues concentrated nearer the Games. Recovery of accumulated deficits in the business plan approved on 26 March 2024 depended on its revenue and expenditure assumptions being realised. (gstatic.olympics.com)

Procurement and accountability mechanisms developed alongside spending. The foundation reported approximately €97 million in purchase orders in 2023, predominantly for services. About 60% of requests for proposals in 2022–2023 included at least one sustainability criterion. It updated its organisational compliance model and whistleblowing procedure in 2023, and appointed an entirely external supervisory body on 27 February 2024. Its July 2024 sustainability update was voluntary and had not undergone independent external assurance. For capital works, SIMICO introduced the Open Milano Cortina 2026 platform in October 2024 to disclose project investments and progress. (gstatic.olympics.com)

Preparations progressed from planning to recruitment and operational testing. Team26, the joint Olympic–Paralympic volunteer programme launched in September 2024, received 80,000 applications by year-end and more than 130,000 by July 2025; these figures measured applications, not volunteers ultimately deployed. Test competitions provided evidence of readiness beyond announced commitments: Livigno hosted the FIS World Cup aerials and moguls finals on 11–13 March 2025 as an Olympic test event, with the local organiser reporting 110 athletes from 19 countries. The programme tested competition facilities and organising arrangements before Games-time operations, while coordination with the IPC accompanied preparations for the subsequent Paralympic event. (gstatic.olympics.com)

Host geography and competition venues

Competition was distributed across northern Italy, rather than concentrated in a single host city. Milan and its metropolitan area accommodated most indoor ice disciplines; Bormio and Livigno formed the Valtellina group in Lombardy; Cortina d’Ampezzo hosted women’s alpine skiing, curling and sliding events in Veneto; and Val di Fiemme, in Trentino, accommodated Nordic skiing. Anterselva, also known by its German name Antholz, hosted biathlon in South Tyrol. Although often presented within four broad geographical clusters, CONI’s operational descriptions also identified Anterselva separately, producing a five-cluster grouping. The division placed arena sports in the metropolitan area and snow competitions at established mountain centres, while retaining curling and refrigerated-track sports at Cortina. (milanocortina2026.coni.it)

Milan’s venues combined existing buildings, temporary ice installations and new permanent construction. The Milano Ice Skating Arena, the Forum at Assago, opened in 1990 and hosted figure skating and short-track speed skating; it had previously staged the 2018 World Figure Skating Championships. The newly constructed Milano Santa Giulia Ice Hockey Arena, work on which began in 2023, was the principal hockey venue. At the Fiera Milano exhibition grounds in Rho, the Milano Ice Park incorporated the Milano Rho Ice Hockey Arena and Milano Speed Skating Stadium. For the latter, adjoining exhibition pavilions 13 and 15 were combined into a covered space exceeding 35,000 square metres to accommodate a 400-metre oval, training ice and supporting facilities. This conversion required atmospheric controls suited to maintaining competition ice, rather than simply installing a rink within an unchanged exhibition hall. (milanocortina2026.coni.it)

In Valtellina, Bormio’s Stelvio Ski Centre hosted men’s alpine skiing and ski mountaineering, whereas women’s alpine races took place at the Tofane Alpine Skiing Centre in Cortina. The allocation reused the existing Stelvio and Olympia delle Tofane racing slopes. Livigno accommodated all freestyle skiing and snowboarding: the Livigno Aerials & Moguls Park served aerials, moguls and dual moguls, while the Livigno Snow Park accommodated the other freestyle and snowboard events. These were not interchangeable snow-covered sites: aerials and moguls required separately prepared jumping and bump courses, distinct from the layouts used for the snow-park competitions. (milanocortina2026.coni.it)

Cortina’s facilities illustrated different degrees of venue reuse. Curling occupied the Olympic stadium inherited from the 1956 Winter Games, while bobsleigh, skeleton and luge used the newly rebuilt Cortina Sliding Centre on the historic Eugenio Monti track site. The latter required a purpose-built refrigerated course and international technical approval, rather than a temporary adaptation of a general sports facility; its official homologation was announced on 19 November 2025. In Val di Fiemme, Predazzo Ski Jumping Stadium hosted ski jumping and the jumping component of Nordic combined, while Tesero Cross-Country Skiing Stadium hosted cross-country skiing and Nordic combined’s skiing component. Predazzo’s existing complex received newly rebuilt jumping hills, visited by the International Ski and Snowboard Federation during its September 2025 Nordic events. Anterselva Biathlon Arena provided the separate biathlon venue. (candidatura2026.coni.it)

Athlete accommodation followed this dispersed geography. Three principal Olympic villages operated in Milan, Cortina and Predazzo, supplemented by hotel-based accommodation groups in Bormio, Livigno and Anterselva. Cortina used temporary residential modules; Predazzo combined existing buildings, renovated accommodation and new structures. This arrangement reduced routine journeys between accommodation, training and competition, but divided delegations among several bases. For longer-distance movement, the organisers’ December 2024 transport programme identified the Milan–Tirano, Milan–Venice and Milan–Trento–Bolzano railway corridors as the transport backbone, with buses connecting rail gateways to mountain clusters and venues. It separately planned accredited transport for movements within and between clusters. The resulting logistical model depended on local accommodation and road transfers rather than daily commuting from Milan to every competition site. (teamdeutschland.de)

Sports programme and event changes

The programme comprised 116 medal events across 16 disciplines within eight sports. In Olympic terminology, a sport is the broader programme category, a discipline is a branch of that sport, and an event is a competition awarding its own medals: skating, for example, encompassed figure skating, short-track speed skating and speed skating. The eight sports were biathlon, bobsleigh, curling, ice hockey, luge, skating, skiing and ski mountaineering. The medal-event breakdown was alpine skiing, 10; biathlon, 11; bobsleigh, four; cross-country skiing, 12; curling, three; figure skating, five; freestyle skiing, 15; ice hockey, two; luge, five; Nordic combined, three; short-track speed skating, nine; skeleton, three; ski jumping, six; ski mountaineering, three; snowboard, 11; and speed skating, 14. There were 54 men’s, 50 women’s and 12 mixed events. These were counts of medal competitions, not the number of medals distributed to individual team members. (library.olympics.com)

Ski mountaineering made its Winter Olympic debut with men’s sprint, women’s sprint and mixed relay. Its inclusion followed its appearance at the Lausanne 2020 Winter Youth Olympic Games and Olympic approval in July 2021. The sprint combined uphill skiing using removable climbing skins, an ascent on foot with skis secured to a backpack, another ski ascent, and a downhill section. Transitions required competitors to remove and reattach skis, strip off skins and change equipment from climbing to descending configuration. Head-to-head elimination rounds tested these handling skills alongside climbing speed and downhill technique. In the mixed relay, one woman and one man represented each team, alternating legs over a course incorporating ascents, descents and equipment transitions. (milanocortina2026.coni.it)

Five further medal events debuted within established disciplines. Women’s doubles increased luge from four events to five; its introduction also expanded the existing team relay to four sleds, running in the order women’s singles, men’s doubles, men’s singles and women’s doubles. Women’s individual large-hill ski jumping supplemented the women’s normal-hill event and brought the discipline’s total to six. Mixed-team skeleton joined the two individual competitions, pairing one woman and one man whose run times were added together. Men’s and women’s dual moguls increased freestyle skiing’s programme from 13 to 15 events. Unlike the existing individual moguls competition, dual moguls placed two skiers side by side on parallel courses in knockout rounds. (wmr-static-assets.scd.dgplatform.net)

Changes in alpine skiing were replacements and a deletion rather than additional medal opportunities. Men’s and women’s team combined replaced the corresponding individual combined competitions. Each same-sex pair consisted of two athletes from the same nation: one raced downhill and the other slalom, with their times summed to determine the result. This differed from individual combined, in which one skier contested both components. The mixed-team parallel competition was removed, reducing alpine skiing from 11 medal events at Beijing 2022 to 10. Thus, the eight additions elsewhere—three ski mountaineering events and five events in existing disciplines—produced a net programme increase of seven, from 109 to 116. (fis-ski.com)

Team-format revisions left the number of medal events unchanged in two other disciplines. In Nordic combined, the four-man team competition was replaced by a two-man large-hill team sprint, with each skier covering 7.5 kilometres; the normal-hill/10-kilometre and large-hill/10-kilometre individual events remained. Men’s ski jumping replaced its four-athlete team format with a two-athlete “super team” competition on the large hill. Its prescribed format comprised three rounds rather than the previous two-round team structure. Cross-country skiing retained 12 events but equalised men’s and women’s distances: both programmes included a 10 + 10-kilometre skiathlon, 10-kilometre interval start, 4 × 7.5-kilometre relay and 50-kilometre mass start, alongside individual and team sprints. (milanocortina2026.coni.it)

Athletes, delegations, and qualification

The Australian Olympic Committee’s post-Games account recorded 2,880 participating athletes. The IOC reported representation from 92 National Olympic Committees (NOCs), alongside Individual Neutral Athletes (AIN), who did not constitute an additional national delegation. Benin, Guinea-Bissau and the United Arab Emirates made their Winter Olympic debuts. Official statistical summaries used different athlete totals: the Italian Olympic Committee’s overview listed 2,916 athletes, including 1,363 women. These published participation figures should therefore retain their attribution rather than be treated interchangeably as a single count of actual starters. Entries, athletes appearing in results, and starts in individual events are different statistical units; the same competitor could enter several events. (olympics.com.au)

Qualification operated through separate international-federation systems rather than a single Olympic qualifying tournament. In alpine skiing, the qualification period ran from July 1, 2024, to January 18, 2026. The allocation system combined a basic quota for NOCs with eligible athletes, additional places associated with top-30 World Cup Start List rankings, and remaining places distributed through an Olympic quota allocation list. The published June 2024 rules provided for 153 men’s and 153 women’s places, with a maximum of 11 athletes of either gender per NOC. Quota places were allocated to NOCs, while the athletes entered had to satisfy the federation’s eligibility requirements: earning a place through an athlete’s ranking did not necessarily make that athlete the NOC’s final nominee. (assets.fis-ski.com)

Team sports used different pathways. The final men’s ice-hockey tournament comprised seven teams admitted through their positions in the 2023 International Ice Hockey Federation world ranking—Canada, Finland, the United States, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland and Czechia—together with host Italy and four teams admitted through Olympic qualification: Slovakia, Latvia, Denmark and France. Italy’s host-country berth illustrates the distinction between automatic team admission and the ranking-based allocation used in individual disciplines; host provisions were determined sport by sport, not through unrestricted entry across the programme. (iihf.com)

Twenty athletes participated under the AIN designation: 13 holding Russian passports and seven holding Belarusian passports. Under the IOC decision of September 19, 2025, they had to qualify through the relevant federation’s sporting pathway and pass an additional eligibility review. The review panel comprised Nicole Hoevertsz, Pau Gasol and Morinari Watanabe. The rules excluded teams, athletes actively supporting the war in Ukraine, and athletes contracted to Russian or Belarusian military or national-security agencies; corresponding conditions applied to support personnel. Anti-doping requirements also remained applicable. AIN competitors used a designated flag and anthem rather than national symbols, did not join the opening ceremony’s parade of delegations, and had their medals excluded from the NOC medal table. (nbcolympics.com)

Women’s representation and women’s event availability measured different aspects of gender equality. CONI’s published total of 1,363 women among 2,916 athletes corresponds to approximately 46.7 per cent; the IOC reported women’s participation rounded to 47 per cent. The programme contained 50 women-only events and 12 mixed-gender events out of 116. Thus women-only competitions accounted for approximately 43.1 per cent of medal events, while women could participate in 62 events, or approximately 53.4 per cent, when mixed competitions were included. Neither event percentage represents the female share of athletes: events differed considerably in roster size, and individual competitors could contest multiple medal events. (milanocortina2026.coni.it)

Competition calendar and sporting operations

Competition began on 4 February 2026, two days before the opening ceremony on 6 February, with the first mixed-doubles curling round-robin session at Cortina’s Olympic Stadium, scheduled for 19:05 local time. Women’s ice hockey followed on 5 February in Milan. These preliminary competitions extended the playing calendar beyond the main sixteen-day medal programme: the Olympic Charter permitted competitions before the opening ceremony with the approval of the relevant federation and the IOC Executive Board. Medal competition began on 7 February, while curling and ice hockey continued through 22 February, the day of the closing ceremony. The women’s curling gold-medal game and men’s ice hockey final formed part of that final day’s programme. (gstatic.olympics.com)

The timetable combined multi-day tournaments with shorter sequences of qualification and finals. In Cortina, mixed-doubles curling progressed from round-robin play to semifinals on 9 February and medal games on 10 February; men’s and women’s team competitions then occupied the remainder of the Games, often using morning, afternoon and evening sessions. Milan’s ice hockey programme comprised 58 games: 28 in the ten-team women’s tournament and 30 in the twelve-team men’s tournament. The men began on 11 February in three groups of four. All twelve teams remained eligible after the preliminary round, with four advancing directly to the quarterfinals and eight playing an additional qualification round. The women’s medal games took place on 19 February; the men’s bronze- and gold-medal games followed on 21 and 22 February. (gstatic.olympics.com)

Mountain competitions ran concurrently rather than moving sequentially between clusters. Bormio staged men’s alpine skiing, Cortina women’s alpine skiing, Livigno freestyle skiing and snowboarding, and Val di Fiemme the Nordic disciplines. Session design reflected different competition formats: alpine slalom and giant slalom separated first and second runs within a day, while park-and-pipe events used qualification sessions to select finalists for later medal sessions. For example, snowboard halfpipe qualification took place at Livigno on 11 February, followed by the women’s final on 12 February and men’s final on 13 February. The published schedules distinguished preliminary sessions from medal sessions, including days on which a discipline required more than one session to determine its final ranking. (gstatic.olympics.com)

Sporting authority was divided between the international federations and the organising committee. Under the Olympic Charter, federations directed their competitions, established technical rules—including judging, timing and equipment specifications—selected referees and other technical officials, and established final results. Organisers supplied the facilities and operational support, including accommodation and transport for officials; competition schedules and results equipment required joint agreement before IOC approval. Equipment inspection remained sport-specific: FIS’s 2025–26 rules, for example, permitted ski jumpers to present up to two suits for technical approval at the Winter Olympics. Timing and results technology was supplied by Omega, which reported deploying 300 timekeepers and 130 tonnes of equipment, including photoelectric cells, starting gates and photofinish cameras capable of recording 40,000 images per second. These measurement systems supported, rather than replaced, decisions by sporting officials. (joc.or.jp)

Actual schedule changes included weather-driven adjustments at Livigno. More than 20 centimetres of overnight snow, followed by continuing snowfall, caused the women’s snowboard slopestyle final scheduled for 17 February to be postponed until 18 February at 14:30. The men’s final, already assigned to 18 February, was brought forward by seventy minutes to 11:20 to accommodate it. FIS’s final results records confirm both sessions on the revised date, distinguishing the implemented change from a contingency proposal. A separate operational postponement affected women’s ice hockey: following medically confirmed norovirus cases within Finland’s team, the Finland–Canada game scheduled for 5 February was reassigned to 12 February at 14:30 at Milano Rho Ice Hockey Arena by agreement among the IOC, organisers, IIHF and both teams. (fis-ski.com)

Medal standings and notable performances

Norway led the final standings with 18 gold, 12 silver and 11 bronze medals, setting Winter Olympic records for both gold medals and total medals at one Games. Its 41 medals surpassed its 39 at PyeongChang 2018, while its gold tally exceeded its 16 at Beijing 2022. The conventional Olympic table ranks delegations first by gold medals, then silver and bronze; identical tallies receive equal rank. Consequently, the Netherlands placed above host Italy despite winning fewer medals overall: both earned ten golds, but the Dutch won seven silvers to Italy’s six. (en.wikipedia.org)

The final table below follows that gold-first convention. Individual Neutral Athletes are shown separately, without a national ranking. (en.wikipedia.org)

Johannes Høsflot Klæbo won all six men’s cross-country skiing events: the 20-kilometre skiathlon, individual classic sprint, 10-kilometre freestyle interval start, relay, team sprint and 50-kilometre classic mass start. His final victory, on 21 February, headed a Norwegian podium sweep ahead of Martin Løwstrøm Nyenget and Emil Iversen. Klæbo became the first athlete to win six gold medals at a single Winter Olympics, surpassing Eric Heiden’s five speed-skating titles in 1980, and raised his career total to 11 Olympic golds—the Winter Games record. The sweep encompassed both skiing techniques, individual distance and sprint racing, and two team formats. (fis-ski.com)

Italy’s 30 medals comprised ten golds, six silvers and fourteen bronzes. Federica Brignone won the women’s super-G on 12 February and giant slalom on 15 February. In the latter, she finished 0.62 seconds ahead of Sara Hector and Thea Louise Stjernesund, who shared silver after recording identical times in both runs. Francesca Lollobrigida contributed two further golds in the women’s 3,000- and 5,000-metre speed-skating races. In short track, Arianna Fontana earned mixed-relay gold and silvers in the women’s 500 metres and 3,000-metre relay. Her fourteenth career Olympic medal, secured in the women’s relay on 18 February, surpassed fencer Edoardo Mangiarotti’s thirteen and made her Italy’s most decorated Olympian across the Summer and Winter Games. (milanocortina2026.coni.it)

Several events produced national firsts. Brazil’s Lucas Pinheiro Braathen won the men’s giant slalom on 14 February in a combined 2:25.00, securing the first Winter Olympic medal for Brazil and for a South American delegation. In pair skating, the final competition protocol recorded Japan’s Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara as champions, ahead of Anastasiia Metelkina and Luka Berulava; the latter’s silver was Georgia’s first Winter Olympic medal. Italy’s first Olympic freestyle-skiing medals included Simone Deromedis’s ski-cross gold, Federico Tomasoni’s silver in the same event and Flora Tabanelli’s big-air bronze. (cob.org.br)

In sliding competition, Great Britain’s Tabitha Stoecker and Matt Weston became the inaugural Olympic mixed-team skeleton champions on 15 February. Their combined time of 1:59.36 beat Germany’s Susanne Kreher and Axel Jungk by 0.17 seconds; Jacqueline Pfeifer and Christopher Grotheer took bronze a further 0.01 seconds behind. Weston thereby added a second gold to his men’s individual title. Italy won both luge doubles competitions through Emanuel Rieder and Simon Kainzwaldner in the men’s event and Andrea Voetter and Marion Oberhofer in the newly introduced women’s event. (nbcolympics.com)

Emblems, mascots, and the torch relay

“Futura”, unveiled on 30 March 2021, represented the number 26 as a continuous, ice-white line, resembling a lightly drawn trace in snow. It was selected over an alternative called “Dado” after the two designs were presented at the Sanremo Music Festival. The online public ballot—the first used to select an emblem for the Olympic Games—gave Futura approximately 75 per cent of more than 870,000 votes. The Olympic and Paralympic emblems shared the same basic outline but differed in colour and accompanying institutional symbols. The Paralympic version filled the numerals with red, blue, and green, the colours of the Paralympic Agitos; its designers also associated the gradient with an aurora photographed above Cortina in 2002. (olympic.ca)

The mascots, Tina and Milo, were unveiled at Sanremo on 7 February 2024. They were sibling stoats: white-coated Tina represented the Olympics, while brown-coated Milo represented the Paralympics. Their names derived respectively from Cortina and Milano. The original proposal came from pupils at the Istituto Comprensivo of Taverna, Calabria, through a competition organised with Italy’s education ministry. More than 1,600 submissions were reduced to two shortlisted concepts for public consultation. The other finalist, snowdrops proposed by pupils at the Istituto Comprensivo Sabin in Segrate, inspired six supporting characters called “The Flo”. Milo’s fictional biography described him as born without a paw and using his tail to help him walk, incorporating disability into the character’s design. (support.olympics.com)

The “Essential” torches were presented simultaneously in Milan and at Expo 2025 in Osaka on 14 April 2025. Designed by Carlo Ratti Associati and developed with Eni and Versalis, they used a restrained form intended to foreground the flame. Each weighed approximately 1,060 grams without its fuel canister and incorporated recycled aluminium and brass. A refillable system allowed reuse up to ten times. The burner used bio-LPG produced at Enilive’s Gela biorefinery from renewable feedstocks, including used cooking oil, animal fats, and agricultural residues. These were specified material, fuel, and reuse provisions; they did not themselves constitute a measured reduction in the relay’s total environmental footprint or a complete life-cycle assessment. (milanocortina2026.comune.cortinadampezzo.bl.it)

The Olympic torch relay began with the ceremony at Ancient Olympia on 26 November 2025. Bad weather moved proceedings into the archaeological museum, where organisers used a reserve flame kindled with sunlight during the rehearsal on 24 November. Greek Olympic rowing medallist Petros Gaidatzis was the first torchbearer, followed by Italian cross-country skiing champion Stefania Belmondo. After the Greek leg, the flame was handed over in Athens on 4 December and flown to Rome. The Italian relay began on 6 December at the Stadio dei Marmi, with Olympic swimming champion Gregorio Paltrinieri among its opening torchbearers. (apnews.com)

The organisers described the Italian itinerary as a 63-day, 12,000-kilometre journey, covering all 20 regions and 110 provinces, with more than 300 municipalities, 60 city celebrations, and 10,001 torchbearer places. These figures defined the relay programme rather than an independently audited final participation count. Recorded milestones included Turin on 11 January 2026, Venice on 22 January, and Cortina d’Ampezzo on 26 January—exactly seventy years after the opening of the 1956 Winter Games. In Venice, torchbearers carried the flame along the Grand Canal in traditional boats. Subsequent stages included Lecco, where Arianna Fontana and Olympic rower Piero Poli participated on 1 February. (milanocortina2026.provincia.bz.it)

The relay reached its conclusion on 6 February during the opening ceremony. Its final stages included Italian volleyball players carrying the flame through San Siro, before Alberto Tomba and Deborah Compagnoni lit the cauldron at Milan’s Arco della Pace. Sofia Goggia simultaneously lit the cauldron in Cortina’s Piazza Dibona, giving the geographically distributed Games two ceremonial flame locations. (fivb.com)

Opening and closing ceremonies

The opening ceremony took place on 6 February 2026, centred on San Siro stadium in Milan and linked to simultaneous celebrations in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Livigno and Predazzo. Its theme, Armonia (“Harmony”), connected the urban and mountain settings through a single televised programme. The four locations also hosted simultaneous athletes’ parades, enabling competitors to participate near their competition venues rather than travel to Milan. The artistic programme presented Italian creativity through dance, opera, fashion and design: an opening sequence evoked Cupid and Psyche and neoclassical sculpture, while another featured suspended paint tubes and music associated with Rossini, Verdi and Puccini. Mariah Carey performed during this celebration of Italian culture. (newsroom.olympics.com)

The distributed parade allowed national delegations to appear at more than one site. Italy’s 146 participating athletes were represented by four flag bearers: Arianna Fontana and Federico Pellegrino in Milan, and Federica Brignone and Amos Mosaner in Cortina. President Sergio Mattarella formally declared the Games open at San Siro; Andrea Bocelli’s performance of “Nessun dorma” accompanied the Olympic torch’s arrival in the stadium. The Olympic flag and anthem formed part of the subsequent protocol, while the Olympic oath was delivered in Cortina’s Piazza Angelo Dibona, where curler Stefania Constantini and luger Dominik Fischnaller represented the athletes alongside representatives of coaches and judges. (milanocortina2026.coni.it)

The ceremony culminated in the simultaneous lighting of two Olympic cauldrons, physically separating the flames from the main stadium while giving both named host communities a concluding role. Alberto Tomba and Deborah Compagnoni lit the cauldron at Milan’s Arco della Pace; Sofia Goggia lit its counterpart in Piazza Angelo Dibona in Cortina. All three were Italian Olympic champions in alpine skiing. The paired lighting connected the two cities through a shared ritual rather than concentrating the ceremony’s final act at San Siro. (milanocortina2026.coni.it)

The closing ceremony on 22 February took place at the Verona Arena, under the title Beauty in Action and the direction of Alfredo Accatino. Its programme used the amphitheatre’s association with opera, opening with theatrical scenes and characters including Aida, Figaro and Rigoletto. Flag bearers and athletes then entered the arena to performances by Davide Shorty, Margherita Vicario and Calibro 35. Italy’s flag bearers were Lisa Vittozzi and Davide Ghiotto; Canada’s were Valérie Maltais and Steven Dubois. An acrobatic sequence portrayed athletes’ effort and perseverance, while a tribute led by DJ Gabry Ponte brought volunteers onstage to form the Games’ “26” emblem. Roberto Bolle subsequently performed an aerial sequence built around water and sunlight. (olympic.ca)

The Olympic handover transferred the flag from the Italian hosts, through IOC President Kirsty Coventry, to representatives of the French Alps, hosts of the 2030 Winter Games. Milan mayor Giuseppe Sala and Cortina mayor Gianluca Lorenzi participated alongside regional presidents Renaud Muselier of Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur and Fabrice Pannekoucke of Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes. The French presentation included “La Marseillaise” and a film invoking a new dawn in the Alps. Coventry formally declared the Games closed. The twin cauldrons in Milan and Cortina were extinguished, with their extinguishing relayed to the audience in Verona by video link. (fr.wikipedia.org)

Broadcasting, spectators, and cultural programmes

Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS) provided host-broadcast production for the Games, supplying international pictures and sound to media rights-holders rather than presenting a single worldwide television programme. Its pre-Games production plan, published on 2 February 2026, specified more than 6,500 hours of content: over 900 hours of sport and ceremonies, supplemented by athlete profiles, interviews, behind-the-scenes material and content for social platforms. Approximately 5,000 broadcast professionals from more than 90 countries were involved in the planned operation. National broadcasters selected and supplemented this material with their own commentary, interviews, studio programmes and editorial priorities. (youtube.com)

Distribution combined free-to-air television, subscription channels and internet streaming. In Europe, the European Broadcasting Union and Warner Bros. Discovery held rights under the agreement announced on 16 January 2023, covering 49 territories for the 2026–2032 Olympic cycle. Participating EBU broadcasters were to provide at least 100 hours of free-to-air Winter Games television coverage, while Warner Bros. Discovery offered comprehensive streaming coverage. In the United States, NBCUniversal distributed coverage through NBC, Peacock, digital services, and the USA Network and CNBC cable channels. Peacock carried every medal event live; NBC’s selected daytime coverage and its edited evening presentation served different viewing schedules. These national programming packages were distinct from OBS’s international production output. (ebu.ch)

At the closing press conference on 22 February 2026, organising-committee chief executive Andrea Varnier reported approximately 1.3 million tickets sold. This was a sales total, not a count of unique visitors or verified admissions: one purchaser could attend several sessions, and a sold ticket did not establish attendance. Audience figures measured another form of participation. On 24 February, NBCUniversal reported an average of 23.5 million viewers across its combined live-afternoon and American prime-time windows, using Nielsen television measurements and Adobe Analytics digital data; the last three days still included preliminary Nielsen figures. The number was therefore neither worldwide reach nor the number of different Americans who watched during the Games. (uk.lapresse.it)

Spectator communication included the official app launched on 20 October 2025 with Olympic Channel Services. Available in 12 languages, including Italian, English, French, German, Mandarin and Arabic, it supplied venue information, practical guides, personalised schedules, alerts and access to ticketing. Accessibility information was organised by venue. Lombardy’s published spectator guidance described planned mobility centres offering wheelchair loans, mobility aids and assistance within competition sites, alongside designated routes and resting areas. Broadcast accessibility was separately addressed: NBCUniversal’s published provision included closed captions for television coverage and commentary-bearing digital streams, and audio description for NBC network coverage and Peacock’s Gold Zone. (milanocortina2026.coni.it)

Participation outside ticketed venues included the free Milano Fan Village in Piazza del Cannone, behind the Sforza Castle, operating from 6 to 22 February with live competition screenings. The Cultural Olympiad extended engagement through museums, theatres, parks and public spaces rather than through a single festival site. Examples included the Fondazione Luigi Rovati exhibition I Giochi Olimpici. Una storia lunga 3000 anni, scheduled from 26 November 2025 to 22 March 2026, and First Love at Teatro Studio Melato on 4–15 February, which connected autobiography and sporting memory through Stefania Belmondo’s 2002 Olympic race. (yesmilano.it)

The cultural programme connected the Games’ public-engagement strategy with art, education and community participation. BAM Fair Play at Biblioteca degli Alberi was conceived as a 70-stage programme combining sport, culture and education from September 2025 to June 2026. FUNDAMENTALS: 1924–2026—Olympic Ice Sports, developed by YesMilano, the Olympic Museum and Metro 5, occupied Portello metro station from 26 January to 30 March 2026. Large-scale illustrations and archival imagery explained ice-sport movements, rules and history, placing educational material within everyday public transport rather than requiring admission to a competition or museum. (yesmilano.it)

Environmental management and post-Games legacy

Venue reuse was central to the organisers’ sustainability framework, but the environmental accounts distinguished organising-committee activities from permanent construction undertaken by other bodies. The July 2024 reporting update covered principally 2023 and selected developments in 2024; it was voluntary and had not undergone independent third-party audit. These were therefore preparation-stage disclosures, not measurements of the completed Games. The IOC’s subsequent final-report announcement stated that 85% of competition venues were existing or temporary and that more than 24,000 pieces of equipment from Paris 2024 had been reused. These indicators documented avoided procurement and construction, rather than a complete life-cycle assessment of the event. (gstatic.olympics.com)

The electricity programme combined grid connections with contractual certification of renewable generation. During the Games, supplier Enel said it was supplying 85 GWh for the Olympics and Paralympics and purchasing guarantees of origin to cover that demand. This certification should be distinguished from electricity physically generated at each venue, and from eliminating all Games-related greenhouse-gas emissions. The organisers also specified hydrotreated vegetable oil instead of conventional diesel where temporary generation was necessary. Permanent electrical works included new primary substations in Livigno and Arabba and distribution-network improvements around Livigno, Bormio and Cortina. (apnews.com)

Water, snowmaking and waste measures likewise combined existing conditions with proposed improvements. The 2024 sustainability report described renewed snowmaking systems using gravity-fed distribution, pressure available at source, and weather monitoring to concentrate production in suitable operating windows. These mechanisms were intended to reduce pumping requirements and unnecessary water consumption; they were not, by themselves, evidence of lower total Games-time consumption. A 2022 survey found an average waste-sorting rate of 70% in host municipalities, providing a local baseline rather than an Olympic recycling result. Subsequent measures included cooperation with the national packaging consortium CONAI, preference for rented temporary installations, and preparation of a reuse plan for Games-owned goods. (gstatic.olympics.com)

Mountain conditions introduced both immediate operational requirements and longer-term investment risks. The Games delivery plan underwent a strategic environmental assessment addressing event services and flows of athletes, workers and spectators across the host territories. Separately, research involving the Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change examined Belluno province, which includes Cortina, rather than the entire Olympic footprint. It projected reductions of 9.5% in snow-cover days and 37.9% in days suitable for snow production in the 2036–2065 period. These were regional projections, not observations from the 2026 competitions, and identified limits to treating artificial snowmaking as a permanent substitute for reliable winter conditions. (gstatic.olympics.com)

Post-Games reuse progressed at different speeds. In Milan, COIMA announced the start of the Porta Romana village’s conversion on April 2, 2026, including adding study furniture and adapting shared kitchens and common rooms; September reporting documented its transition into a student residence of approximately 1,700 beds. Transport improvements also included completed works: on February 4, infrastructure manager RFI reported completion of Games-related station upgrades in Valtellina, including accessibility, passenger facilities and interchange arrangements. Meanwhile, Lombardy identified Bormio’s alpine venue and Livigno’s freestyle and snowboard facilities for use at the 2028 Winter Youth Olympics—an announced subsequent sporting use, distinct from an established long-term operating record. (coima.com)

The distributed model’s operational findings were mixed. Reporting on the IOC’s final assessment recorded Olympic-village experience satisfaction of approximately 53% at single-sport accommodation sites, compared with 74% at larger villages, and identified incomplete early information about mountain travel and accommodation. These findings qualified the IOC’s favourable institutional assessment of decentralised hosting. Its estimate of more than €5 billion in expected economic impact for Italy remained an attributed forecast, not a measured net return after construction, maintenance and operating costs. Similarly, venue reuse percentages did not establish the lifetime financial or environmental performance of individual facilities. (francsjeux.com)

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