XXV Olympic Winter Games
2026 Winter Olympics logo
Emblem of the 2026 Winter Olympics
Host cityMilan and Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy
MottoSognando insieme[citation needed] (English: Dreaming together)
Events116 in 8 sports
Opening6 February 2026
Closing22 February 2026
StadiumSan Siro (Opening ceremony)
Verona Arena (Closing ceremony)
Winter
Summer
2026 Winter Paralympics

The 2026 Winter Olympics (Italian: 2026 Olimpiadi invernali), officially the XXV Olympic Winter Games (Italian: XXV Giochi olimpici invernali) and also known as Milano-Cortina 2026 (Ladin: Milano-Anpezo 2026 or Milano-Ampëz 2026), is an upcoming international multi-sport event scheduled to take place from 6 to 22 February 2026 in Milan and Cortina d'Ampezzo. The joint bid from the two cities beat another joint bid from Swedish cities StockholmÅre by 47–34 votes at the 134th Session of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in Lausanne, Switzerland, on 24 June 2019.[1][2][3]

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 and the 70th anniversary of the Winter Olympics in Cortina d'Ampezzo. It will follow the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris and precede the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, California.

Bidding process

Main article: Bids for the 2026 Winter Olympics

Host city selection

Milan and Cortina d'Ampezzo were elected 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.

2026 Winter Olympics bidding results[4]
City Nation Votes
Milan–Cortina d'Ampezzo  Italy 47
Stockholm–Åre  Sweden 34
One abstention[4]

Development and preparations

Speed Skating venue selection

During the bid process, the Committee proposed that the speed skating events should be held at the speed skating stadium 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 two choices: building a new and temporary ice rink in the pavilions of Fiera Milano, an option that would require significant structural work, or move the events to the Oval Lingotto in the city of Turin which required no structural improvements.

The Oval Lingotto hosted the speed skating events during the 2006 Winter Olympics and has hosted events since. The Oval also hosted the 2007 Winter Universiade speed skating event and is scheduled to host it again in 2025. In April 2023, it was confirmed that the temporary ice rink in Fiera Milano would cost nearly €30 million to be developed while Oval Lingotto would cost less than €10 million and will take only a year. Despite being the cheaper option, Oval Lingotto received opposition from local authorities, including Giuseppe Sala and those from the regions of Lombardy and Veneto.[5] Fiera Milano was confirmed as the speed skating venue on 19 April 2023.[6][7]

Venues

2026 Winter Olympics is located in Northern Italy
Locations of the venues in Northern Italy. The host cities are circled in blue.

Milan Cluster

Cortina d'Ampezzo Cluster

Valtellina Cluster

Val di Fiemme Cluster

Verona

San Siro Stadium in Milan and Verona Arena will be venues of opening and closing ceremonies respectively.

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.[8]

On 24 June 2022, the IOC announced the 2026 program. The alpine mixed team parallel event was removed, and the alpine combined event will now feature two people from each team instead of one as proposed by the FIS.[9] 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 confirmed.[10]

Marketing

The official emblem for the 2026 Games was decided through a online poll that opened on 6 March 2021. The two candidate emblems were unveiled at the Sanremo Music Festival 2021 by former Italian Olympic gold medallists Federica Pellegrini and Alberto Tomba and are nicknamed "Dado" and "Futura".[11] They were both designed by Landor Associates.[12] The vote closed on 25 March 2021, with the winning emblem, the "Futura" emblem, was announced on 30 March 2021.[13][14]

During the Sanremo Music Festival 2022, two 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.[15]

Broadcasting rights

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 the Eurosport and Discovery+ channels in 49 European territories.[59] Unlike the previous contract where corporate precursor Discovery, Inc. was responsible for sub-licensing them to broadcasters in each country,[60][61] 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.[59]

In the United States, NBC will again broadcast the event as part of its US$7.75 billion contract[62] to air the Olympics through to 2032.[63] 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.[64][65]

See also

Notes

References

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Winter Olympics Preceded byBeijing XXV Olympic Winter GamesMilanCortina d'Ampezzo 2026 Succeeded byTo be determined