{"id":797109,"date":"2019-06-25T14:48:01","date_gmt":"2019-06-25T20:48:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/news\/milan-cortina-triumph-highlights-italys-north-south-divide\/"},"modified":"2019-06-25T14:48:01","modified_gmt":"2019-06-25T20:48:01","slug":"milan-cortina-triumph-highlights-italys-north-south-divide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/local-news\/milan-cortina-triumph-highlights-italys-north-south-divide\/","title":{"rendered":"Milan-Cortina triumph highlights Italy\u2019s north-south divide"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Members of Milan-Cortina delegation celebrate after winning the bid to host the 2026 Winter Olympic Games, during the first day of the 134th Session of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), at the SwissTech Convention Centre, in Lausanne, Switzerland on Monday.<\/strong>
Philippe Lopez \/ AP | AFP Pool<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

LAUSANNE, Switzerland \u2014 Italy\u2019s winning bid to host the 2026 Winter Olympics highlighted the growing gap between the north and the south of the country.<\/p>\n

Milan and Cortina d\u2019Ampezzo won the vote Monday to stage the Games as International Olympic Committee members voted 47-34 for the long-favored bid over Stockholm-Are from Sweden.<\/p>\n

It is the third time an Olympic Games will be held in the north of Italy after Turin hosted in 2006 and Cortina staged in 1956 and comes shortly after two Rome bids for the Summer Games had to be scrapped.<\/p>\n

Rome, which hosted the Olympics in 1960, was forced to end its bid for the 2024 Games because of staunch opposition from the city mayor. And in 2012, then-premier Mario Monti scrapped the city\u2019s candidacy for the 2020 edition because of financial concerns.<\/p>\n

\u201cMilan and Rome are so different,\u201d Milan mayor Giuseppe Sala said. \u201cBut the most important thing is that the basic structure of services are different: in terms of public transport, in terms of waste collection, in terms of medicine and so on.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 2026 Games will be held in two of the wealthiest regions of Italy \u2014 and indeed Europe.<\/p>\n

They serve as a contrast to Italy\u2019s underdeveloped south, where youth unemployment runs 50 percent or higher, and the jobless rate among all ages is nearly double that in the north.<\/p>\n

While Rome is Italy\u2019s actual capital, Milan is the nation\u2019s business and financial capital as well as one of the world\u2019s leading fashion hubs.<\/p>\n

Milan has grown significantly over the past decade and was further boosted by hosting the Expo World Fair in 2015.<\/p>\n

Expos, which are held every five years, can last up to six months and cost millions of dollars to host, but can also help put a city on the global map by bringing in international visitors and attention \u2014 much like hosting an Olympics.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe made a progress in the last 20 years which is impressive and we had the opportunity with Expo to test (the progress),\u201d continued Sala, who was the man responsible for delivering the Expo.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy hope is that we will see an improvement in Rome because we love Rome \u2026 Milan is more solid at the end of the day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Italian Olympic president Giovanni Malago had a more concise explanation.<\/p>\n

\u201cSimple,\u201d he said, speaking in English. \u201cThe mayor of Milan and the mayor of Cortina gave me faith and the mayor of Rome did not give me faith. This is the true.\u201d<\/p>\n

An emotional Malago was close to tears at the winner\u2019s news conference.<\/p>\n

The 60-year-old said it goes some way to easing the pain of the bid being scrapped in Rome \u2014 his home city.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no personal sense of revenge but just the really great win of a Olympic commitee of which I have the honor to be president,\u201d Malago said. \u201cI think in life you have to risk things, responsibly, and our courage was rewarded.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe wound has closed completely but if you lift up the shirt you\u2019ll see the scar. The scar will always remain because Rome remains my city.\u201d<\/p>\n

via:: Summit Daily<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Members of Milan-Cortina delegation celebrate after winning the bid to host the 2026 Winter Olympic Games, during the first day of the 134th Session of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), at the SwissTech Convention Centre, in Lausanne, Switzerland on Monday.Philippe Lopez \/ AP | AFP Pool LAUSANNE, Switzerland \u2014 Italy\u2019s winning bid to host the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[99],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-797109","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-17 05:16:35","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/797109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=797109"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/797109\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=797109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=797109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=797109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}