Milan-Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics Set to Open in Italy

MILAN (MNN); The 25th Winter Olympic Games will be staged in Milan-Cortina, Italy, with the opening ceremony scheduled for Friday. Around 3,500 athletes from across the world will compete in 116 events spanning 16 disciplines over 19 days.

For the first time in Olympic history, the opening ceremony will be held across multiple locations. The main celebrations will take place at Milan’s iconic 80,000-seat San Siro Stadium, home to football giants AC Milan and Inter Milan. Additional ceremonies and athlete parades will be held in Predazzo, Livigno and Cortina d’Ampezzo, aligned with competition venues.

The ceremony will feature leading Italian and international performers, including American pop star Mariah Carey, with nearly 60,000 spectators expected to attend.

The Winter Games will be hosted across two primary hubs: Milan, Italy’s second-largest city, and Cortina d’Ampezzo, a renowned alpine resort in the Dolomites. With events spread across northern Italy, Milan-Cortina 2026 will be the most geographically dispersed Winter Olympics ever.

Competitions are divided into four main clusters: Milan; Valtellina, including Bormio, Valdisotto and Livigno; Cortina, including Anterselva/Antholz; and Val di Fiemme, including Predazzo and Tesero. Verona will host the closing ceremony and later the opening of the Paralympics on March 6.

Italy is hosting the Olympics for the fourth time, having previously staged the Winter Games in 1956 and 2006, and the Summer Games in 1960.

Major broadcasters will air the Games worldwide, including NBC Olympics and Peacock in the United States, CBC Gem and TOU.tv in Canada, BBC and Discovery+ in the UK, and NRK and HBO Max in Norway.

Key events include alpine skiing, freestyle skiing, figure skating, ski jumping and ice hockey. Freestyle snowboarding disciplines such as slopestyle, big air and halfpipe are also expected to draw strong youth interest. Ski mountaineering will make its Olympic debut with men’s and women’s sprints and a mixed relay.

Star athletes to watch include alpine skiing legend Lindsey Vonn, aiming to add to her Olympic medal tally, alongside Mikaela Shiffrin, snowboarder Chloe Kim and figure skater Ilia Malinin for the United States. Japan’s Ryoyu Kobayashi and Slovenia’s Domen Prevc are favourites in ski jumping, while China’s two-time champion Eileen Gu will again be in focus.

Ice hockey is set for a major boost with the return of NHL players for the first time since 2014, led by Canadian legend Sidney Crosby. Norway, the top medal-winning nation at the last two Winter Games, is once again expected to challenge for dominance, facing strong competition from the USA, China, Germany and Canada.

Milan-Cortina 2026 will also be the most gender-balanced Winter Olympics ever, with female athletes making up more than 47 percent of participants and a record 50 women’s events scheduled.

The Games have an estimated total budget of 5.2 billion euros, including 3.5 billion euros in public infrastructure spending and 1.7 billion euros in private funding. Italian authorities expect around two million visitors and a global audience exceeding three billion, forecasting long-term economic benefits through tourism and improved transport links.