Secure Your Accommodation for the 2026 Winter Olympics in Cortina

The International Olympic Committee has reiterated that the bobsleigh track being built by Italy for the 2026 Winter Olympics must be ready by March 2025, despite strong opposition, and that there will be "no compromises."

Italy's efforts to rebuild the Cortina bobsleigh track for the 2026 Winter Olympics, to be held in the town and Milan, are progressing despite disagreements and a recommendation against it from the International Olympic Committee (IOC). To avoid construction costs and potential white elephant venues, the IOC wanted Italy to use an existing track in another country, with two nearby options in Switzerland or Austria, among others further away.

Two years before the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan-Cortina (Italy), the IOC has reiterated its doubts about the bobsleigh track that has just started construction amid additional criticism over tree felling. The track must be validated by an IOC pre-homologation before March 2025 to ensure the safety of the athletes.

Work on the century-old track finally began this week, less than a year before the IOC-mandated test events. No sliding track in recent memory has been completed in such a short time, and organisers continue to negotiate a possible Plan B in a neighbouring country. Dubi said the track must be ready by March 2025 to ensure the safety of athletes.

Faced with this uncertain scenario of whether Italy will manage to get the track ready in record time, the Italian head of the organisation of the 2026 Olympic Games in Milan and Cortina, Andrea Varnier, is considering other plans in case the track is not ready in time. The president of the Coordination Commission for the 2026 Olympic Games, Norwegian Kristin Kloster, also expressed her doubts, pointing out that the IOC "did not recommend the construction of new structures" because the work would be expensive (82 million euros) and of little interest to the local population, let alone the athletes.

Italy is moving ahead with its $90 million plan to rebuild the historic track in Cortina, which falls under its organisational jurisdiction (and was the original plan when it was designated in 2019), and which, if successful in time, would allow it not to lose out on hosting the bobsleigh, luge and skeleton events for the 2026 Olympic Games in Milan-Cortina.