{"id":2445674,"date":"2019-06-24T13:55:15","date_gmt":"2019-06-24T19:55:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=308429"},"modified":"2019-06-24T13:55:15","modified_gmt":"2019-06-24T19:55:15","slug":"italys-milan-cortina-wins-fight-to-host-2026-winter-olympics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/italys-milan-cortina-wins-fight-to-host-2026-winter-olympics\/","title":{"rendered":"Italy\u2019s Milan-Cortina wins fight to host 2026 Winter Olympics"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
From left, the Mayor of Milan Giuseppe Sala, Italy’s National Olympic Committee (CONI) president Giovanni Malago, Italy’s Lombardy region President Attilio Fontana, Italy’s Under Secretary of State Giancarlo Giorgetti, Italy’s Olympic Gold Medallist in Fencing Diana Bianchedi, Italy’s Veneto Region President Luca Zaia and Mayor of Cortina Gianpietro Ghedina pose after Milan-Cortina won the bid to host the 2026 Winter Olympic Games at the SwissTech Convention Centre, in Lausanne, Switzerland, Monday, June 24, 2019. Italy will host the 2026 Olympics in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo, taking the Winter Games to the Alpine country for the second time in 20 years.<\/strong>
Laurent Gillieron\/Keystone via AP<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

LAUSANNE, Switzerland \u2014 Riding a wave of widespread Italian enthusiasm to be an Olympic host, Milan and Cortina d\u2019Ampezzo won the vote Monday to stage the 2026 Winter Games.<\/p>\n

International Olympic Committee members voted 47-34 for the long-favored Milan-Cortina bid over Stockholm-Are from Sweden that also included a bobsled track in Latvia.<\/p>\n

Milan-Cortina\u2019s jubilant delegation broke into chants of \u201cItalia! Italia!\u201d when the result was announced, giving the Alpine nation a second Winter Games in 20 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m really emotional,\u201d Italian Olympic president Giovanni Malago said, close to tears at the winner\u2019s news conference. \u201cIt\u2019s a very important result, not only for me but the whole country.\u201d<\/p>\n

Italy will get a third Winter Games, after Turin hosted in 2006 and ski resort Cortina staged in 1956.<\/p>\n

Sweden never hosted the Winter Games and was sent to an eighth loss in bidding in the past 41 years.<\/p>\n

A lack of enthusiasm for the project in Sweden \u2014 rating 28% below the Italians in the IOC\u2019s own polls \u2014 was a decisive factor.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat was clear was the gap in public support,\u201d IOC President Thomas Bach said, suggesting it hinted at weaker political backing.<\/p>\n

A spirited late campaign effort was in vain, including Stockholm\u2019s mayor Anna Konig Jerlmyr appealing to voters from the stage by singing a lyric from Abba song \u2018Dancing Queen\u2019.<\/p>\n

A sign of simmering Swedish frustration came minutes later when IOC board member Gunilla Lindberg pushed the limit of Olympic diplomacy ending her team\u2019s 30-minute presentation.<\/p>\n

Lindberg challenged her colleagues to reward a new kind of creative, cost-effective bid the IOC has said it wanted \u2014 \u201cOr is it just talk?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt just came. I felt it (needed to be said),\u201d Lindberg told The Associated Press after the vote.<\/p>\n

Instead, IOC members picked Italy despite a debt-hit economy which faces increasing European Union scrutiny.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe submit with full confidence to your judgment,\u201d Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte told IOC members before their vote.<\/p>\n

Both candidates would likely have failed to get this far in previous Olympic bidding contests.<\/p>\n

The IOC has relaxed previously strict rules that demanded financial guarantees and government support earlier in the process.<\/p>\n

It was an attempt to revive Winter Games bidding with just two candidates on the ballot paper for the second straight time, since Russia spent $51 billion on venues and infrastructure for the 2014 Sochi Olympics.<\/p>\n

Now, the IOC seeks to avoid costly new venues \u2014 and potential white elephants \u2014 while encouraging regions and multi-nation bids to share the load. Hence, Sweden teamed with Latvia, across the Baltic Sea, rather than build its ice sliding sports venue.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have budget problems in Italy but I think that this is something that everyone has,\u201d Italy Undersecretary of State Giancarlo Giorgetti said at an earlier news conference, citing the wealth of the Lombardy and Veneto provinces underwriting the games costs. \u201cThey are two of the richest provinces in Europe.\u201d<\/p>\n

The IOC will give at least $925 million toward Italy\u2019s games operating costs of up to $1.7 billion.<\/p>\n

After Russia\u2019s huge spending in venues, infrastructure and cost overruns for the 2014 Sochi Winter Games, multi-billion dollar construction projects were awarded in new markets for the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics and 2022 Beijing Olympics.<\/p>\n

The 2026 contest met Bach\u2019s long-stated wish to return to traditional winter sports heartlands, use existing venues and cut costs.<\/p>\n

The IOC praised both candidates for projecting sports budgets \u201con average 20% lower\u201d than spending on the 2018 and 2022 games.<\/p>\n

Building athlete villages in Milan and Stockholm shaped as the main capital investment and most uncertain ventures in the projects.<\/p>\n

Last week, the IOC flagged Stockholm\u2019s village as a risk, and asked for more details of guarantees underwriting the project.<\/p>\n

\u201cA letter of intent is as important to us as any contract,\u201d Volvo chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg said in the formal presentation, in what seemed a rebuke to the Olympic body.<\/p>\n

Needing to work hard to persuade Olympic voters, Sweden sent its heir to the throne, Crown Princess Victoria, and Prime Minister Stefan Lofven to Lausanne.<\/p>\n

Sweden\u2019s search continues for its first home Olympics since the 1912 Stockholm Summer Games.<\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From left, the Mayor of Milan Giuseppe Sala, Italy’s National Olympic Committee (CONI) president Giovanni Malago, Italy’s Lombardy region President Attilio Fontana, Italy’s Under Secretary of State Giancarlo Giorgetti, Italy’s Olympic Gold Medallist in Fencing Diana Bianchedi, Italy’s Veneto Region President Luca Zaia and Mayor of Cortina Gianpietro Ghedina pose after Milan-Cortina won the bid […]<\/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":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2445674","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-20 05:58:59","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":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2445674","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2445674"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2445674\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2445674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2445674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2445674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}