The organizers of the 2026 Winter Olympics now want to build a new bobsleigh track in Cortina d’Ampezzo. Against the will of the IOC, which has actually put more sustainability on the agenda.
The International Olympic Committee likes to rely on secret diplomacy, especially when dealing with autocrat regimes and other problem cases in world sport. However, in the dispute over the bobsleigh track for the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy, the IOC has taken a clear position: IOC officials have made it clear several times that they want to build a new bobsleigh track in… Cortina d’Ampezzo, for an estimated 80 million euros, would disapprove. Just like a renovation of the disused Olympic track near Turin from 2006, which would probably only be slightly cheaper.
IOC agenda against building a new bobsleigh track in Italy
For the competitions at the 2026 Games there would only be one “existing, fully functional railway outside Italy“The IOC said explicitly in an official statement in December Olympic Summit. Kristin Kloster, IOC Commissioner responsible for evaluating the Games Milano-Cortinarecently reiterated the requirement that no new, permanent competition venues should be built where there is no secure plan for subsequent use.
The Rings organization has committed to greater sustainability in its Agenda 2020. Also to keep the Winter Games, which have recently lost an increasing number of candidate nations, sustainable in times of climate change. However, the construction of new ski jumps or ice rinks, which often remain unused in the landscape after the Games, does not fit in with the IOC’s new, greener paint job.
But the Italian Olympic hosts aren’t playing along. Above all, politicians from the right-wing governments in Rome and in the Veneto region, in whose territory Cortina d’Ampezzo is located, stuck to the plans for a bobsleigh track in Italy. Even after several rounds of tenders, no construction company could be found for it.
Last October, at the IOC Congress in Mumbai, the organizers of Milano-Cortina 2026 officially declared the project over and announced that they were now looking for an ice track abroad. Innsbruck-Igls, Sankt Moritz and Königssee would have been conceivable alternatives in the Alpine region alone.
Bobsleigh track as a national project of the Meloni government
But Italy’s nationalist government would like to avoid the embarrassment of having to be the first host of the Winter Games to host competitions abroad at all costs. Infrastructure Minister Matteo Salvini made himself the leader of an Italian bobsleigh association.
The deputy prime minister pushed forward a new tender for the construction of a scaled-down ice rink in Cortina, with success: the Olympic infrastructure company presented it in mid-January Simico a large construction company from Parma that is supposed to build the railway in Cortina for the advertised sum of 81.8 million euros. However, a contract is still pending, it was said.
“It was the political will of the Veneto region and the Italian state to insist on the construction of the bobsleigh track in Cortina“, says Luigi Casanova from the Italian environmental organization Mountain Wilderness. He describes a new railway in Italy as “pure waste“, simply because of the manageable number of Italian athletes who practice bobsleigh or sledding professionally.
Italy’s organizers Confrontation course with the IOC
The IOC had announced a decision for the end of January, by then Italy’s organizers should actually have presented an alternative plan. The organizing committee announced on Tuesday (January 30, 2024) that the construction of a new railway in Cortina would continue “preferred option” be.
A surprising turnaround that also puts the IOC, a declared opponent of a new bobsleigh track for the Games, under pressure to act. In an initial reaction to AFP, the IOC reiterated its belief that the “Number of winter sports centers worldwide for the current number of athletes and competitions” is sufficient in the bobsleigh and sled disciplines.
At the same time, the IOC had already responded to a request from the Alpine Protection Organization last year Cipraexplains: If Italy were to build an ice track by the time of the Winter Games, then it would be “unreasonable not to use this for competitions too“.
Resistance in Italy against Olympic construction projects
There has been great resistance to the mega-project in the Dolomites ever since the Olympic bid was awarded. The major Italian environmental associations, which initially met with the Olympic organizers at the “round table”, canceled the dialogue altogether last September. Because of a lack of participation and transparency, and in protest against the escalating costs of the Olympic construction projects, which, according to calculations by the NGOs, had exceeded the five billion euro mark.
“We are talking about public money, from the Italian state or from the regions of Veneto, Lombardy and South Tyrol-Trentino. Expenses that have no benefit for local people“says environmental expert Casanova, himself based in Trentino.”Our great fear is that the Olympic Games will cause a lot of damage in our region, including socially.”
There are still legitimate doubts about the use of a new ice rink in Italy. The incredibly expensive tracks built for the games in Sochi and Beijing have not yet had a permanent place in the World Cup calendar; there are far more facilities than are needed.
Tight schedule – first acceptance in March 2025
However, the new Cortina building could still fail due to the extremely tight schedule. The project is expected to take 625 days of construction time, compared to 807 days expected in the previous tender. Accordingly, the track would be ready by the onset of winter in 2025 – a real precision landing: the opening ceremony of the games is scheduled for February 6th. According to Italian media reports, the first deadline is March 2025, then the first acceptance and test drives will take place.
The Italian newspaper “La Republic” has already outlined a new horror scenario: the track will be built, but not finished in time for the test competitions and the games. Or, according to the other fear, the inspectors from the Olympic associations refused to approve an ice track that was built at the last minute – for example because it does not meet the competition requirements. There may eventually be a bobsleigh track in Cortina – but the 2026 Olympic competitions will still take place abroad.