These Olympics will take place from February 6 to February 22, 2026.
The Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics will be held in various stadiums and locations throughout Italy. The key locations are Milan, Cortina d’Ampezzo, Valtellina (Bormio/Livigno), Antholz (Anterselva), and Verona.
- Milan will host the opening ceremony at San Siro Stadium and will be the venue for indoor sports such as figure skating and ice hockey.
- The mountains of Cortina d’Ampezzo will host snow sports, including alpine skiing and snowboarding.
- Valtellina, including Bormio and Livigno, will welcome freestyle skiing and snowboarding events in its stunning mountain landscapes.
- Antholz (Anterselva) will host biathlon, a sport that combines cross-country skiing and rifle shooting.
- The Verona Arena will host the opening ceremony of the Paralympic Winter Games and the closing ceremony of the Olympic Winter Games.
The 2026 Olympics will feature the debut of a new sport: ski mountaineering, also known as Skimo.
Skimo is a winter sport combining uphill climbing and downhill skiing. Athletes use very light skis with special sticky strips on the bottom to help them climb uphill. When it’s time to go down, they take the strips off and adjust their skis so they can go fast downhill. The race can also include sections where participants must remove their skis and carry them on their backs while walking up steep terrain. It’s a tough sport that needs a lot of stamina, good skiing skills, and smart decision-making in the mountains.
“Skimo is actually a really painful and savage sport to practice.” Said a skimo athlete.
There will also be new events in existing sports.
There will be a women’s double in Luge, which is something athletes and organizers are very happy about. Also, they added the ski jumping women’s large hill individual, and women will race the same distance as men for cross-country skiing.
Skeleton will introduce a mixed team relay, pairing one male and one female athlete per nation, while freestyle skiing will debut men’s and women’s dual moguls. In alpine skiing, the traditional individual combined event will be replaced by a team combined, where two skiers of the same gender—one competing in downhill and the other in slalom—combine their times for a single result.
Italy is actually facing a lot of problems concerning the Winter Olympics.
The host is facing climate change, and this means less natural snow ( fake snow ), energy-intensive artificial snowmaking, with some courses struggling for coverage, something that can really affect sports like skiing and snowboarding.
Also environnement will suffer because of overtourism during these 19 days. The Games are expected to worsen tourism pressure in the sensitive Dolomites, leading to local calls for caps and fee increases. The goal of these proposals is to balance the economic benefits of the Olympics with the long-term protection of the region’s natural environment and quality of life for local communities.
Italy will face construction delays, like some venues, for example, the Milan hockey Arena.
They were also not ready for the budget increase they are now facing, with total costs potentially nearing €6 billion, including infrastructure.
By chance, like at each Olympics, Italy has a lot of sponsors, including Coca-Cola, Samsung, Airbnb, and others.
From Quebec, Italy is 6 hours ahead, which means Quebecers will either stay out very late at night to watch the evening sports and show, or save it and watch it another day.
It’s accessible on CBC or Radio Canada and possibly on Sportsnet/TSN. Also on the CBC Sports website (cbc.ca/sports/olympics). To track it, there is the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics
“I’m really excited to watch this year’s winter Olympics! ” Said Raphaëlle Lemay.
