“La passione vive qui” reads the faded slogan above the entrance, Italian for “passion lives here”, but almost nothing lives here now.
The spectre of this ghost town haunts organisers of the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan, where there are fears they could be building another white elephant.
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Read MoreThe Cortina Sliding Centre is currently a building site, and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has already designated the American city of Lake Placid, the host of next month’s world championships nearly 4,000 miles from Cortina D’Ampezzo, as the back-up venue if Italy cannot meet the March deadline for pre-certification.
No athletes have been able to practice on the track yet (Photo: Getty)But the Italian government is adamant the events will not be moved (Photo: Getty)
When it first became clear that delays could mean the revamped track was not completed in time for the Games, the idea of using nearby venues in other countries was mooted: Alpine Cortina is only 20 miles from the Austrian border.
“The Milan-Cortina Olympics must be an Italian Olympics,” roared Italy’s Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini. There would be no shortage of irony then if they are forced to put Plan B to switch the events to Lake Placid.
Cortina’s mayor Gianluca Lorenzi said this week: “There are backups for everything but… as of today, a Plan B for the bob races does not exist anymore because it has been made clear the sliding centre is being built here.
Ice-making at the sliding centre is supposed to start next month (Photo: Reuters)
Photos do not inspire much confidence, although the outline of the 70-year-old track is clear to see.
But Team GB’s chef de mission Eve Muirhead, the 2021 curling gold medallist who will lead the British team in Milan, says she has belief in the convictions of the Italians.
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Read More”We’ve just got to work with what we have in front of us. The organising committee are very positive and I’m looking forward to going out there for the chef’s seminar in a couple of weeks and I am sure we will get another update when we get there.
It would be a significant upheaval for the Britain’s sliding contingent, which includes world No 1 skeleton racer Matt Weston and bobsleigh pilot Brad Hall, currently third in the World Cup rankings.
Weston’s team-mate Marcus Wyatt is also ranked No 3 in the world, making the British sliders some of the best medal contenders. And in January, Team GB scouts were in Cortina identifying an elite gym for their athletes to use in the run-up to racing.
Marcus Wyatt is one of Britain’s best hopes in the sliding events (Photo: Getty)Brits, nomads of the winter sports world, are no strangers to taking to a track cold, and Hall, seen as one of Britain’s best medal hopes in Milan, is known as a fast learner, so it might even be an advantage if everyone else is pushing off from that same start line: the unknown.
If the event does switch to Lake Placid though, it will of course be advantage Team USA. But the Italians are determined that it won’t, as is the IOC.
It would not be a good look for the Winter Olympics, already a concept under significant financial threat, to sprout a similar off-shoot, forcing teams, broadcasters, athletes and hundreds of others to tear up their plans and start again.
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