Two countries will host the 2026 Winter Olympics for the first time: Italy and Austria

For the first time in the history of the modern Olympic movement, the Winter Games will be hosted by two countries at once. At a session of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the hosts of the 2026 Games, which will be held in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo, announced their refusal to build a luge and bobsleigh track. There are no suitable tracks in Italy, so it was decided to move the bobsleigh, luge and skeleton competitions to another state. Austrian Salzburg has already expressed its readiness to accept them.

At the IOC session, which ended in Mumbai, India, an interesting decision was made. The president of the organizing committee for the 2026 Olympics, which will be hosted by the Italian Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo, Giovanni Malaggio told the session delegates that Italy will not be able to build a bobsleigh track. It should be noted that medals are played out in three disciplines at once: bobsleigh, luge and skeleton.

“A few days ago, the Italian government informed us that we should consider the best options that exclude the construction of a new bobsleigh track in Cortina d’Ampezzo,” he said. Mr. Malaggio added that the Italian authorities recommended that the organizing committee look for the possibility of holding relevant competitions on the territory of other states. “We are already working on options that can be submitted for approval by the IOC Council,” noted Giovanni Malaggio.

There is actually a bobsleigh and luge track in Cortina d’Ampezzo. It was she who appeared in the application of Italian cities during their struggle for the right to host the Games. We are talking about a track named after bobsledder Eugenio Monti (winner of two gold medals in Grenoble 1968 and nine-time world champion). It was opened in 1923, has since gone through four renovations, and was closed in 2008 due to dilapidation and non-compliance with modern requirements.

However, the 2026 organizing committee hoped that as a result of another renovation, the track would be given a new life. Its cost did not seem prohibitive – the organizing committee notified the IOC back in 2021 that rebuilding the track would cost €50 million. The IOC considered such expenses of the organizing committee acceptable.

Subsequently, however, it turned out that the announced €50 million for reconstruction was not enough; it would be easier to demolish the track and build a new one instead.

And this would greatly increase costs. The average cost of building a luge and bobsleigh track in recent years has fluctuated around €100–120 million. Plus, about €1 million a year is spent on maintaining it in working condition, despite the fact that its operation does not generate significant income. Thus, the track became one of the most expensive objects of the Games. After all, for example, the Italian authorities allocated only €50 million for the renovation of the speed skating arena, and about €25 million for the springboard for ski jumping competitions. At the same time, the Italian authorities insisted that the total costs of preparing for the Games should not exceed €2 billion (the original proposal included costs of €1.5 billion).

The IOC tried to transform the shortcomings of the Italian organizing committee in preparing for the Games into an achievement. The head of the 2026 Games Coordination Committee, Christine Kloster Osen, said that moving the luge and bobsleigh tournament to another country would be in accordance with the IOC principles stated in Agenda 2020 program. One of its points states that there is no need to build capital sports facilities if their post-Olympic use is not obvious. On this basis, Ms. Kloster Osen noted, the IOC welcomes the decision of the 2026 organizing committee to move the luge and bobsleigh tournament to another location.

Apparently, Salzburg will host the competition. The authorities of the Austrian city have already notified the IOC of their readiness to join the Olympic project.

Thus, for the first time in history, the Winter Olympic Games will be held in two countries at once. But collective holding of the Olympics is an extremely rare phenomenon. This happened twice before. And both times at the Summer Olympics. In 1920 part of the sailing competition was moved from the Belgian Ostend (the capital of the Games was Antwerp) to the Dutch Amsterdam. In 1956when Melbourne hosted the Olympics, the competition in equestrian sport had to be carried out in Stockholm, since Australia had strict sanitary standards for the import of animals.

Alexander Petrov