Milano-Cortina 2026: Italy's sports greats look forward to 'Olympics of the Future'
In four years, Italy will host the Olympic Winter Games for a third time. From Sofia Goggia to Arianna Fontana, Italian Olympians explain why we should be excited.
As Beijing 2022 hands over the Olympic flag to Milano-Cortina 2026, Italian sporting heroes are looking forward to staging the greatest Winter multi-sport event on earth at home.
Italy will host the Winter Games for the third time after Cortina d'Ampezzo 1956 and Torino 2006.
"Milano-Cortina will be the Olympics of the future," said three-time alpine skiing Olympic champion Deborah Compagnoni, who's also ambassador and advisor for the Milano-Cortina 2026 Foundation.
"This is the third time a Winter Games takes place in Italy and we’re looking forward to it. This is a great opportunity to showcase our mountains, our special places, this will be an ‘Italian’ Olympics."
"I think everybody's excited to go to Italy in the first place," said Arianna Fontana, Italy's most decorated Olympian with 11 medals.
"I'm sure we will be able to give athletes and fans something amazing, something incredible."
The short track legend is one of the Italian Olympians who starred at Beijing 2022 and are now sharing their desire to compete in front of the home crowd in four years' time.
"I'm pretty excited," said two-time downhill Olympic medallist Sofia Goggia, who announced that Milano-Cortina 2026 will be her last Games.
"I was part of the [Milano-Cortina 2026] delegation in Lausanne in June 2019, on the day when we brought home the Olympic Games," she remembers.
Goggia and fellow Olympic gold medallist, snowboarder Michela Moioli, had a crucial role in winning over voters as they made a joint speech in front of the members of the International Olympic Committee.
"For sure, the Olympic Games at home are something that are not going to happen so often in your career, and I will really focus on the preparation and set perfect goals for these next four years in order to be ready, and still fit, even though I will be 32," Goggia added.
Curler Stefania Constantini was one of the breakout stars at Beijing 2022, and her hometown Cortina will be co-hosting the next Winter Olympics.
"An Olympic Games at home only happens once in a lifetime and this is really my home because Cortina is where I live," said the mixed doubles Olympic champion.
The 22-year-old thinks that Milano-Cortina 2026 will be key for the development of her sport:
"I think it's very important because in these four years it will give curling the opportunity to grow more and more. Since the Olympics will be at home, the curling movement can grow more and will perhaps bring even more success."
"This will be a great opportunity for us and I'm really looking forward to it," said Omar Visintin, who won silver with Moioli in the first mixed team snowboard cross event.
"It is a big dream and I am not planning to stop snowboarding not until Cortina, maybe not afterwards, because I'm having so much fun and having the Games in Italy, it's like... wow!"
Arianna Fontana: Milano-Cortina 2026 is 'a really nice dream'
"To compete again in Italy would be the perfect way to end my career," admitted Fontana.
"I had my first Olympics in Turin in 2006, so ending in 2026 at Milano-Cortina would be something amazing, something that I don't think any other winter athlete did before.
"For now, it's a dream, it's a really nice dream and we'll see if it 'll become true."
The 31-year-old explains what the next Winter Games means for her country:
"COVID really hit us really hard in the last few years but we were able to get up and be stronger," Fontana said.
"I think we saw it in sport and we saw it at the Summer Olympics[in Tokyo], we saw it here at the Winter Olympics. We have a really strong will that it's inside us and obviously we're really passionate."
"We'll give everything we have to make sure that this Olympics will be something incredible that everyone will remember forever." - Arianna Fontana
Milano-Cortina 2026: Iconic venues and environmental sustainability
The Milano-Cortina 2026 Olympic Winter Games will start on 6 February 2026.
It will feature 16 Olympic disciplines, including the new addition ski mountaineering, which also featured at the Lausanne 2020 Winter Youth Olympics.
Among the most iconic venues, Antholz-Anterselva will stage the biathlon competitions, while Bormio and Cortina will host the alpine skiing events:
"I know well the (Olympic) ski tracks in Bormio and Cortina because I won races in both places," said Compagnoni.
"They are two very different venues. Cortina is used to host women’s events so I raced many times and with those big rocks you feel surrounded a typical Dolomites landscape. Bormio’s track is spectacular, very technical, probably the most technical in the men’s World Cup, and our downhillers love it."
One of the legacy plans of Milano-Cortina 2026 will be a focus on environmental sustainability.
"It’s the Olympics that will adapt to the territory," said Compagnoni, who was one of the torchbearers at the Torino 2006 Opening Ceremony.
"All the facilities will be re-used or they are made with disposable or re-usable materials. An example is the Olympic Village in Milan: it was built as student accommodation, and it’ll be temporarily used as Olympic Village during the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games."