Italy’s Milan-Cortina wins vote to host 2026 Winter Olympics

Riding a wave of significant Italian enthusiasm to be an Olympic host, Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo received the vote Monday to level the 2026 Winter Games.
International Olympic Committee individuals voted 47-34 for the long-preferred Milan-Cortina bid over Stockholm-Are from Sweden that also included bobsled music in Latvia.
Milan-Cortina’s jubilant delegation broke into chants of “Italia! Italia!” when the end result become announced, giving the Alpine state a second Winter Games in 20 years.
“I’m simply emotional,” Italian Olympic president Giovanni Malago stated, close to tears at the winner’s news convention. “It’s a completely critical end result, no longer handiest for me however the entire u. S ..”
Italy gets a 3rd Winter Games after Turin hosted in 2006 and ski hotel Cortina staged in 1956.
Sweden by no means hosted the Winter Games and turned into sent to an eighth loss in bidding in the past forty-one years.
A loss of enthusiasm for the assignment in Sweden — rating 28% underneath the Italians within the IOC’s very own polls — become a decisive factor.
“What changed into clean was the space in public guide,” IOC President Thomas Bach stated, suggesting it hinted at weaker political backing.
A lively late campaign attempt changed into in vain, including Stockholm’s mayor Anna Konig Jerlmyr appealing to electorate from the degree via singing a lyric from Abba song ‘Dancing Queen’.
A signal of simmering Swedish frustration came minutes later when IOC board member Gunilla Lindberg driven the limit of Olympic international relations ending her group’s 30-minute presentation.
Lindberg challenged her colleagues to reward a new type of innovative, cost-effective bid the IOC has said it desired — “Or is it just communicate?”
“It just got here. I felt it (had to be said),” Lindberg instructed The Associated Press after the vote.
Instead, IOC contributors picked Italy in spite of a debt-hit economic system which faces increasing European Union scrutiny.
“We submit with full confidence for your judgment,” Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte informed IOC participants before their vote.
Both applicants would possibly have failed to get this some distance in previous Olympic bidding contests.
The IOC has comfortable previously strict policies that demanded monetary ensures and government guide earlier inside the manner.
It became a try to revive Winter Games bidding with just two candidates at the ballot paper for the second directly time since Russia spent $51 billion on venues and infrastructure for the 2014 Sochi Olympics.
Now, the IOC seeks to keep away from high priced new venues — and capacity white elephants — at the same time as encouraging areas and multi-kingdom bids to percentage the load. Hence, Sweden teamed with Latvia, across the Baltic Sea, as opposed to building its ice sliding sports activities venue.
“We have finances problems in Italy however I assume that this is some thing that everyone has,” Italy Undersecretary of State Giancarlo Giorgetti said at an in advance information conference, citing the wealth of the Lombardy and Veneto provinces underwriting the games expenses. “They are of the richest provinces in Europe.”
The IOC will give as a minimum $925 million closer to Italy’s video games running fees of as much as $1.7 billion.
After Russia’s large spending in venues, infrastructure and cost overruns for the 2014 Sochi Winter Games, multi-billion dollar production initiatives were provided in new markets for the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics and 2022 Beijing Olympics.
The 2026 contest met Bach’s lengthy-said wish to go back to conventional winter sports activities heartlands, use existing venues and reduce costs.
The IOC praised both applicants for projecting sports budgets “on common 20% lower” than spending on the 2018 and 2022 games.
Building athlete villages in Milan and Stockholm formed as the primary capital investment and most unsure ventures within the initiatives.
Last week, the IOC flagged Stockholm’s village as a chance and asked for extra info of ensures underwriting the mission.
“A letter of the rationale is as crucial to us as any contract,” Volvo chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg said in the formal presentation, in what seemed a rebuke to the Olympic body.