At the Ice Hockey Arena: third ring and second rink to be completed
Anyone who, in the last few hours, has passed through Milan’s eastern ring road at the Rogoredo exit, could not have failed to notice it: the three external rings of the Santagiulia Arena, those which, seen from afar, make it appear like a large spaceship, “pulsed” with different colours. White, red and green in particular. The flying LEDs, compared to the three days of the first and only test event last weekend, are a further step in the progress of the work towards the start of the Olympics. The facility – 11,600 seats for spectators, plus those for accredited guests, one of the few created from scratch for the third Italian Winter Games – will, as is known, host a large part of the men’s hockey tournament, with the return of the NHL stars to the five-ring scene after twelve years, plus some matches of the women’s one. The first appointment is set for Thursday 5 February, one day earlier than the opening ceremony: at 2.40pm, the match in the women’s qualifying round will begin – probably already decisive – between Italy and France.
slippery ice
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Although the test event, according to almost everyone, including North American observers, gave comforting results, it remains that the major critical issues in the Olympic countdown, at the facility level, are precisely linked to Santagiulia. The rink, as guaranteed by the 68-year-old Canadian guru Don Moffatt, ice manager in the NHL from 1996 to last season and already involved in the 2006 Turin Games, will be of quality. On much else, however, there is still a lot to do. It is no coincidence that hundreds of workers, with shifts covering all 24 hours of the day, returned to work immediately after the championship final (won by Asiago on Renon) played on Sunday evening. The facility is currently closed even to those who will work inside it during the event. The third ring, the skyboxes, the hospitality area, the bars, the services and the public areas require profound interventions. As well as, if not above all, the secondary track, the training one. It’s still off-limits. But certain videos and images leaked recently are… chilling. Not to mention – remaining in the area, but moving to the Assago Forum – the track that will host the figure skaters’ training sessions. Planned under a tent near the main structure, it is far from being completed. The first official sessions are scheduled for Saturday 31 January. That is, in two weeks. There’s not an hour to waste. And the two temporary structures at Rho Fiera, for long track speed skating and other ice hockey? The first is a gem, the second appears a little too “minimalist”. But that’s it.
curtain
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Even the new Cortina casing for bobsleigh, skeleton and luge, which aroused so much controversy before and during its construction, from a technical-sports point of view passed the test exams with flying colours. The Italian specialists will be the first to test it again. However, the installation of the stands and the external finishes still need to be finished. Even at the renovated ice rink, the fulcrum of the 1956 edition and now home to curling, we are down to the details: we are working on furnishings and decorations. And the news came on Wednesday evening that, according to the outcome of the autopsy carried out on behalf of the Belluno Prosecutor’s Office, the death of Pietro Zantonini, the 55-year-old security guard who died on the night of Thursday 8 January on the construction site of the Stadium, was due to an “acute cardiac event”, but “difficultly attributable” to hypothermia possibly caused by the very low temperatures of the place. In the Pearl of the Dolomites, returning to the emergencies, what remains of great concern are the works and the many works in progress – including tunnels and variants – linked to the road and transport hubs. But all this has little to do with plant engineering. The rest In Livigno, where the snowboard and freestyle trials will be held, in particular by the president of the international alpine skiing federation, the Swedish-English Johan Eliasch, doubts had been raised about the quality of the artificial snow. Doubts, by his own admission, have now been dispelled. And in Bormio, the location that will host the men’s alpine skiing and ski mountaineering competitions, an Olympic discipline for the first time, important IOC emissaries gave the “green light” this week. In Predazzo the safety problems that arose regarding the trampoline have been resolved. But in Tesero, home of the cross-country and Nordic combined track, the fixed structures have never been questioned, as already revealed during the Tour de Ski there are delays in the temporary ones: from the stands for spectators, to the ski rooms to the lounges for the athletes. In short, it was a race against time.
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