The Winter Olympics events facing controversial move 4,000 miles from host venue ...Middle East

An hour’s drive from Turin, on the slopes of Mont Chaberton, there is an eerie, deserted bobsleigh track.

“La passione vive qui” reads the faded slogan above the entrance, Italian for “passion lives here”, but almost nothing lives here now.

Weeds and grass grow between the concrete where ice used to carry Olympic athletes at breakneck speeds down the hill to golden glory.

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.

‘Freestyle skiing is my meditation, that’s why I’m still flying upside down at 31’

Because with exactly a year to go before the latest Winter Olympic Games to be held in Italy, there is still no completed venue for the bobsleigh, skeleton and luge events.

The 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.

The project is a £98m renovation of the track that hosted the Olympic bobsleigh event in 1956, when Eugenio Monti won two silver medals for Italy, and after whom the track is now named.

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.

In October 2023, Games chief Giovanni Malago – influenced by the IOC’s concerns – conceded that the sliding events would not be held in Italy after no companies wanted to take on the complex reconstruction of the Eugenio Monti track. Austria, Switzerland, France and Germany were all considered and talks were ongoing – until the Italian government intervened.

“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.

In the wake of the Italian government politicising the issue, the organisers have gone from resigned just 15 months ago to bullish over prospects of sticking with “Plan A”.

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.

“I am not worried… technicians are telling us the centre is going to be ready.”

Photos do not inspire much confidence, although the outline of the 70-year-old track is clear to see.

Even the International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation, after visiting last month, admitted “the schedule remains tight and challenging” with ice-making due at the beginning of March ahead of first tests for the surface a few weeks later.

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.

The 15 best performances and biggest surprises of the Paris Olympics

“There is still some work to do on it but they are still very positive come the next check in mid-February, and the homologation [testing] in March,” Muirhead said.

”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.

“We’re following the organising committee’s advice and right now we’re all focused on sliding being in Cortina. If that does change then we go with it and it’s all hands on deck to make that work, but right now it’s looking very positive for it to continue being in Cortina and we’ll keep a close eye on it.”

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.

Ideally, they would have seen or even raced on the track ahead of time, although that luxury is rarely afforded to anyone except home athletes.

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.

It will not be a complete slide in the dark though: teams will be given an international testing slot, whatever the track, in November during which they can familiarise themselves with conditions.

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.

The body already had to weather one storm over the Paris Olympic Games last year, with the surfing event held in Tahiti, thousands of miles away from the host city and requiring a whole village – including a number of cruise ships – and associated infrastructure of its own.

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.

Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( The Winter Olympics events facing controversial move 4,000 miles from host venue )

Also on site :

• Petroleum Ministry activates emergency plan for natural gas supply
• Amazon Is Selling a 'Buttery Soft' $60 2-Piece Set for Just $30, and Shoppers Say It 'Feels Like Spanx Air Essentials'
• Ben Gurion Airport closed until further notice