2026 Winter Olympics

The 2026 Winter Olympics (Olimpiadi invernali del 2026), officially the XXV Olympic Winter Games (XXV Giochi olimpici invernali) and also known as Milano Cortina 2026, is an upcoming international multi-sport event scheduled to take place from 6 to 22 February 2026 in the Italian cities of Milan and Cortina d'Ampezzo. The joint bid from the two cities beat another joint bid from Swedish cities Stockholm–Åre by 47–34 votes at the 134th Session of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in Lausanne, Switzerland, on 24 June 2019.

This will be the fourth Olympic Games hosted in Italy, which previously hosted the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, the 1956 Winter Olympics in Cortina d'Ampezzo and the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome. It will be the first Olympic Games officially featuring multiple host cities and will be the first Winter Olympics since Sarajevo 1984 where the opening and closing ceremonies will be held in different venues. Events will also take place in seven other north-northeastern Italian cities. The games will mark the 20th anniversary of the Winter Olympics in Turin, the 70th anniversary of the Winter Olympics in Cortina d'Ampezzo and the first time that Milan will host an Olympic Games.

Host city selection
Milan and Cortina d'Ampezzo were selected as the host cities on 24 June 2019 at the 134th IOC Session in Lausanne, Switzerland. The three Italian IOC members, Franco Carraro, Ivo Ferriani and Giovanni Malagò, and two Swedish IOC members, Gunilla Lindberg and Stefan Holm, were ineligible to vote as stated in the Olympic Charter.

Speed Skating venue selection
During the bid process, the bidding Committee proposed that the speed skating events could be held at the existing Ice Rink Piné in Baselga di Pinè. However, despite the infrastructure being ready, it required a roof which impact and cost studies indicated would be very expensive, potentially breaking the budget. So instead, the Committee deliberated over three choices: building a temporary or a permanent ice rink in the pavilions of Fiera Milano, options that would require significant structural work, or move the events to the Oval Lingotto in the city of Turin which required no structural changes.The venue was constructed to host the speed skating during the 2006 Winter Olympics and after the games, hosted a variety of events such as exhibitions, fairs and conferences.The venue was also used at 2007 Winter Universiade to host the same sport and also will host the same event in 2025. In April 2023, it was estimated that the temporary ice rink in Fiera Milano would cost nearly €20 million, which would be paid for with private funds. The proposal to use Turin's Oval Lingotto received opposition from Milan-area officials, including Milan mayor Giuseppe Sala and officials from the host regions of Lombardy and Veneto. Fiera Milano was confirmed as the speed skating venue on 19 April 2023.

Concerns about sliding sports
During the bidding process, the joint Committee proposed to restore the iconic Eugenio Monti olympic track in Cortina, to be relaunched as a federal centre also for sledding and skeleton. The minimum cost of restoring the closed track was initially estimated at €14 million, while in the official Milan-Cortina bid dossier the cost indicated was €100 million (similar budget needed to build the Cesana Pariol track used at the 2006 Winter Olympics). After initially forecasting an expenditure of €40-50 million, the Veneto Region allocated funding up to €85 million to build the new Olympic venues. An annual expenditure of €400,000 was also planned for the management of the facility, which would be open four months a year, to be settled through the establishment of €8 million fund. Due to the rising cost of construction materials, the Veneto region president Luca Zaia turned public in February 2023 that the restoring cost for the Eugenio Monti track could be upwards of €120 million. Calling for tenders to award the work, no company came forward with a bid by the 31 July 2023 deadline; even after that, no company interested in carrying out the work could be found, both for economic reasons and because of the difficulty to complete all works before the start of the Olympics. Due to critical issues, costs and prohibitive times for the total renovation of Cortina track, the mayor of Innsbruck, Austria made a proposal for the use of Igls Olympic Sliding Centre. On 16 October 2023 the Italian National Olympic Committee (CONI) announced that the track will not be rebuilt to host the 2026 Olympic Winter Games, and the sliding events could be held outside of Italy. However, the current Italian government wanted the sliding events to remain in Italy, so they are currently studying the possibility to revamp the Cesana Pariol track which hosted the events at the 2006 Winter Olympics, which has been dormant since 2011. Since then, several construction companies have summited bids to study a potential reconstruction of the Eugenio Monti track. A bid was won to build a new sliding track instead of rebuilding the Eugenio Monti track.

Venues
The Milano-Cortina 2026 proposal involved many of the competition venues used during the 2013 Winter Universiade (Val di Fiemme), held in the province of Trentino and those infrastructures that were still in use that were also used in the 1956 Winter Olympics also held in Cortina D'Ampezzo. All the ice events with the exception of curling will be held in venues in Milan or in their Metropolitan Region. The opening ceremony is scheduled to San Siro Stadium and the closing is scheduled for Verona Arena as the only event possible scheduled for Verona.

Milan

 * Stadio Giuseppe Meazza – opening ceremony
 * PalaItalia Santa Giulia – ice hockey main venue

Rho

 * Fiera Milano, Rho – ice hockey secondary venue, speed skating, IBC and MBC

Assago

 * Mediolanum Forum, Assago – figure skating, short-track speed skating

Cortina d'Ampezzo Cluster

 * Olimpia delle Tofane – alpine skiing
 * South Tyrol Arena, Antholz – biathlon
 * Stadio Olimpico del Ghiaccio – curling
 * Eugenio Monti Olympic Track – bobsleigh, luge and skeleton

Bormio

 * Pista Stelvio – alpine skiing, ski mountaineering

Livigno

 * Mottolino/Sitas-Tagliede/Carosello 3000, Livigno – snowboarding, freestyle skiing

Predazzo

 * Giuseppe Dal Ben Ski Jumping Stadium, Predazzo – ski jumping and nordic combined

Tesero

 * Fabio Canal Cross Country Stadium, Lago di Tésero – cross-country skiing and nordic combined

Verona

 * Verona Arena – closing ceremony

Sports
Numbers in parentheses indicate the number of medal events contested in each discipline.



On 18 June 2021, the International Olympic Committee proposed that ski mountaineering be included as a sport for the 2026 Winter Olympics. The proposal was approved on 20 July.

On 24 June 2022, the IOC announced the final 2026 program. The alpine mixed team parallel event was removed, while the alpine combined event will now feature two athletes (one man and one woman) from each team instead of one as proposed by the FIS. Along with the three ski mountaineering events, five new events have been added to the Olympic program in four sports that were already on the program. In this way, a total of 116 events in eight sports were scheduled.
 * Freestyle skiing: Men's and women's dual moguls.
 * Luge: Women's doubles, with a reversal of the existing doubles event from open to an exclusively men's event.
 * Ski jumping: Women's large hill individual.
 * Ski mountaineering: Men's and Women's sprint, mixed relay.
 * Skeleton: Mixed team.

Participating National Olympic Committees
The following 8 National Olympic Committees have qualified athletes. Seven qualifiers and the hosts, Italy, were confirmed as entered by the IIHF into the ice hockey tournament with Russia provisionally holding another spot.

Emblem
For the first time, the emblem of an Olympic Games was determined via a public vote. On 6 March 2021 during the Sanremo Music Festival finals, two candidate designs titled "Dado" and "Futura" were unveiled by former Italian Olympic gold medallists Federica Pellegrini and Alberto Tomba. They were both designed by Landor Associates. On 30 March 2021, "Futura" was announced as the winning emblem. The emblem consists of a stylized "26" written in a single stroke, representing the impact of "small gestures", and "sport, solidarity, and sustainability".

Mascot
An online vote closing on 28 February 2023 was held among a list of candidates to select the two mascots of the event. The winning candidates, designed by the students of a school in Taverna and inspired by stoats, were presented during the second night of the Sanremo Music Festival 2024 on 7 February 2024. Their names were revealed to be Tina and Milo (derived from the names of the host cities), and are portrayed as sister and brother. The choice of stoats has been explained as being due to these animals' embodiment of "the contemporary Italian spirit" of curiosity, ability to change according to the seasons, and capacity of adaptation to challenging habitats. The two main mascots are additionally accompanied by six snowdrop flowers, called "The Flo".

Characteristics
Milo, a brown stoat, and Tina, a white stoat, are a brother and sister "born in the mountains of Italy" who "decided to move to the city". Tina, the main Olympic mascot, symbolizes art, music and the transformative force go beauty. Milo, the Paralympic mascot, was born without a leg, and represents ingenuity, willpower and creativity.

Theme song
During the Sanremo Music Festival 2022 finals, the two final candidates for the official anthem of the event were presented, with a poll opening afterward. On 7 March 2022, "Fino all'alba" ("Until the dawn")—composed by the youth music group La Cittadina of the San Pietro Martire in Seveso, and performed during Sanremo by Arisa — was announced as the winner.

Broadcasting rights
In Italy, domestic rights are owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, with free-to-air coverage and digital rights sub-licensed to the country's public broadcaster RAI. On 16 January 2023, the IOC announced that it had renewed its European broadcast rights agreement with Warner Bros. Discovery Sports to last from 2026 through to 2032. The contract covers pay television and streaming rights to the Summer, Winter, and Youth Olympics on Eurosport and Discovery+ in 49 European territories. Unlike the previous contract where corporate precursor Discovery, Inc. was responsible for sub-licensing them to broadcasters in each country, free-to-air rights packages were concurrently awarded to the European Broadcasting Union and its members to cover at least 100 hours of each Winter Olympics. RAI then signed a sub-licensing deal with Warner Bros Discovery for Italian free-to-air TV and digital rights.

In the United States, NBC will again broadcast the event as part of its US$7.75 billion contract to air the Olympics through to 2032. Under the National Football League's new media rights agreements that begin in 2023, NBC will also serve as broadcaster of the Super Bowl (which is now rotated among all four of the United States' major commercial FTA networks) during Winter Olympic years that fall under the contract.


 * Albania – RTSH
 * Asia – Infront Sports & Media
 * Australia – Nine
 * Austria – ORF
 * Belgium – RTBF, VRT
 * Brazil – Grupo Globo
 * Bulgaria – BNT
 * Canada – CBC/Radio-Canada
 * China – CMG
 * Croatia – HRT
 * Czech Republic – ČT
 * Denmark – DR, TV 2
 * Europe (except Russia and Belarus) – EBU, Warner Bros. Discovery
 * Estonia – ERR
 * Finland – Yle
 * France – France Télévisions
 * Germany – ARD, ZDF
 * Greece – ERT
 * Hungary – MTVA
 * Iceland – RÚV
 * Ireland – RTÉ
 * Israel – Sports Channel
 * Italy – RAI
 * Japan – Japan Consortium
 * Kosovo – RTK
 * Latvia – LTV
 * Lithuania – LRT
 * Macau – TDM
 * Montenegro – RTCG
 * Netherlands – NOS
 * North Korea – JTBC
 * Norway – NRK
 * Philippines – Cignal TV, PLDT, Smart, TV5
 * Poland – TVP
 * Slovakia – STVR
 * Slovenia – RTV
 * South Korea – JTBC
 * Spain – RTVE
 * Sweden – SVT
 * Switzerland – SRG SSR
 * Ukraine – Suspilne
 * United Kingdom – BBC
 * United States – NBCUniversal