The Winter Olympics will take place in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo at the beginning of 2026. In which disciplines will the medals be fought for, when will the individual competitions take place, who will broadcast the Olympics on TV and in the stream? sport.de has compiled the most important information.
It is the 25th Winter Olympics, which opens on February 6, 2026 in Italy. Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo beat the Swedish competition from Stockholm and Are and thus ensure the third Winter Olympics in Italy after Cortina d’Ampezzo 1956 and Turin 2006.
Winter Olympics 2026: Where will the competitions take place?
The venues are divided into a total of four clusters. In addition to the two venues, these are the Valtellina cluster and the Fiemme valley cluster. There is also Verona, where only the closing ceremony will take place.
A new ice hockey arena is being built in Milan, and after a lot of back and forth, a new track for bobsleigh, tobogganing and skeleton is to be built in Cortina. All other competition venues already exist.
- Milan cluster: Giuseppe Meazza Stadium (opening ceremony), Forum di Milano (figure skating and short track), Palaltalia (new building – ice hockey) and the exhibition center (ice hockey and speed skating)
- Cortina d’Ampezzo cluster: Olimpia della Tofane (alpine skiing women), Olympic Ice Stadium Cortina (curling), Südtirol Arena Antholz (biathlon), Cortina Sliding Center (new building – bobsleigh, tobogganing and skeleton)
- Valtellina cluster: Pista Stelvio in Bormio (alpine skiing men and ski mountaineering), Mottolino/Sitas and Tagliede/Carosello 3000 (snowboard, ski freestyle)
- Fiemmestal cluster: Trampolino dal Ben (ski jumping and Nordic combined), Lago di Tesero (cross-country skiing and Nordic combined)
In which disciplines do the athletes compete?
The 25th edition of the Winter Olympics will feature competitions in 16 disciplines. There will be a total of 116 competitions (54 for men, 50 for women, 12 mixed competitions). Ski mountaineering is included in the Olympics for the first time.
- Biathlon: 11 decisions (divided into 5x men, 5x women and 1x mixed)
- Bob: 4 decisions (divided into 2x men and 2x women)
- Curling: 3 decisions (divided into 1x men, 1x women and 1x mixed)
- Ice hockey: 2 decisions (divided into 1x men and 1x women)
- Figure skating: 5 decisions (divided into 1x men, 1x women and 3x mixed)
- Speed skating: 14 decisions (divided into 7x men and 7x women)
- Nordic Combined: 3 decisions (3x men)
- Luge: 5 decisions (divided into 2x men, 2x women and 1x mixed)
- Short track: 9 decisions (divided into 4x men, 4x women and 1x mixed)
- Skeleton: 3 decisions (divided into 1x men, 1x women and 1x mixed)
- Alpine skiing: 10 decisions (divided into 5x men and 5x women)
- Ski Freestyle: 15 decisions (divided into 7x men, 7x women and 1x mixed)
- Cross-country skiing: 12 decisions (divided into 6x men and 6x women)
- Ski mountaineering: 3 decisions (divided into 1x men, 1x women and 1x mixed)
- Ski jumping: 6 decisions (divided into 3x men, 2x women and 1x mixed)
- Snowboard: 11 decisions (divided into 5x men, 5x women and 1x mixed)
When will the medals be awarded?
The first curling games start two days before the opening ceremony. Most decisions are made on the penultimate day – gold is at stake ten times. On the day of the closing ceremony, February 22nd, there will be four more decisions, including the one for the men’s ice hockey crown.
Who broadcasts the competitions on TV and stream?
At the beginning of 2023, the IOC announced that the rights packages for the 2026 Winter Olympics had also been re-awarded to the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and Warner Bros. Discovery.
As part of the EBU, both ARD as well as ZDF broadcast the games on linear TV as well as on their online platforms. Warner Bros. Discovery includes both Eurosport on free TV as well as pay TV offers Eurosport2 and discovery+.
ARD has already announced that it wants to report on TV for at least 100 hours about the Olympic Games.