Race against time to complete contested Milan-Cortina bobsleigh track

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CORTINA D’AMPEZZO – With a year to go until the start of the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics, organisers are racing against time to ensure the sliding events are held in Italy and not moved over 6,000 kilometres away to Lake Placid.

Twelve gold medals will be awarded for bobsleigh, luge and skeleton, events held on a track which is costly and difficult to build and has frequently caused headaches for organisers of the 2026 Winter Games.

In Cortina d’Ampezzo in the Dolomite mountains, where the women’s alpine skiing events will also be held, 190 workers are working around the clock, seven days a week, to deliver a winding 1,650-metre track with 16 bends and complex refrigeration systems in time for an approval deadline in March.

Milan-Cortina’s winning bid for the Olympics included the refurbishment of the Eugenio Monti track as part of its broader strategy to make use of existing sites.

But the old concrete structure, built in 1923 and immortalised in the 1981 James Bond film “For Your Eyes Only”, has not been in use since 2008 and no longer conforms to environmental and safety regulations.

Italy was left without an initial bidder for the complicated renovation project and with no active bobsleigh track in the country despite Turin hosting the Winter Olympics in 2006.

The president of the Italian Olympic Committee (CONI), Giovanni Malago, unwittingly set off a political firestorm by announcing in October 2023 that the sliding events would be held outside the host nation.

Italy’s hard-right government made a patriotic political stand against Malago’s announcement, with Deputy Prime Minster Matteo Salvini insisting that the sliding events be held in Cortina.

Italian construction company Pizzarotti ended up being the only bidder for a second tender launched by Simico, the Games’ construction delivery company, worth around €120 million ($168.5 million).

The decision was heavily criticised by the International Olympic Committee, which pointed out that a bobsleigh track had never been built in such a short space of time.

Regardless, work began in February 2024, with Simico, the Games’ organisers, the IOC and the bobsleigh and luge federations carrying out nervous monthly inspections.

Last week, Simico told AFP: “We are on schedule, the pre-homologation will take place over March 24-30.”

Olympic Games executive director Christophe Dubi was also positive, saying that “nothing indicates that they will ...

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