Milano Cortina 2026 leverages technical observation opportunities at several winter sport events
The 2022-2023 winter season provided 100 members of the Milano Cortina 2026 workforce with the opportunity to observe first-hand the operations at several major sports events in the north of Italy, partly on Olympic and Paralympic sites. The Milano Cortina 2026 IKL team played an important role in facilitating and supporting these learning opportunities for various FAs, including Sport, Venue Infrastructure, Logistics, Transport, Media Operations and Accessibility. In total, the FAs observed nine winter sport events between December 2022 and March 2023, starting with the Turin Grand Prix of Figure Skating Final and concluding with the finals of the Para Alpine Skiing World Cup in Cortina.
Reflecting on these observation opportunities, Valentina Comoretto, Media Operations Manager at Milano Cortina 2026, said: “We are focused on planning what the stakeholders will find during their Milano Cortina 2026 experience: our main delivery is to guarantee the highest level of media facilities and services, across all competition and non-competition venues, based on quality, personality and passion. For that reason, the opportunity to be on site years before, interacting with media representatives who usually cover winter sports, is a huge resource in terms of information and suggestions. These situations, where you are involved not only as an observer but also as an active part of major winter sports organisations, are helpful to better know the local realities, with their points of interest, peculiarities and beauty to be enhanced through all the services Milano Cortina 2026 will implement in the upcoming months.”
Adaptive Winter Sport
Another Milano Cortina 2026 project, Adaptive Winter Sport (AWS), has gained traction over the last few months. Part of the OCOG’s education and legacy initiatives, AWS kicked off last year and aims to expand sports participation opportunities for all people with disabilities, thereby supporting the national sports federations and the National Paralympic Committee (NPC) in promoting Paralympic winter sports and related activities across the country, starting with the regions hosting the Games in 2026. An important component of the project is the training of sports instructors and empowering them to teach Paralympic winter sports on snow and ice. In the first six months, the Fondazione Milano Cortina 2026 has helped the two winter sports federations in Italy to organise a series of Para ice hockey courses for hockey coaches and develop guidelines on Para Alpine skiing, which will be used to educate the next generation of ski instructors.
Coming up
The coming months promise to be action-packed for the Milano Cortina 2026 IKL team. In May, they will collaborate with the IOC to roll out the new Games Learning Platform and also organise a learning workshop for their executive team.
In addition, the OCOG is looking forward to getting involved in the Observers Programme for Paris 2024 and meeting the new Head of IKL at LA28, Maria Wu Kiskis.