IOC President Thomas Bach announced the results of the vote, through which Italy officially became the host of the 2026 Winter Olympics. Twenty years after the 2006 Turin Winter Olympics, the world’s biggest winter sports event will return to the boot-shaped country in 2026.
The 134th session of the International Olympic Committee took place in Lausanne, Switzerland held a vote to determine the host of the 2026 Winter Olympics. As a result, in two run registration records In the race to host this event, the Italian cities of Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo received the highest number of votes with 47 votes. While the Swedish cities Stockholm and Are received 34 votes.
Thus, the victory was officially belonged to the Italian representative. This is the third time Southern Europe has had the honor to host this event – the most recent being the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin. While Cortina previously hosted the 1956 Winter Olympics.
Key to Italy’s victory was the strong support from the local community for the event, IOC President Thomas Bach told Reuters. With a support rate of up to 80 percent in a poll conducted by the IOC recently. Compared with more than 50 percent of the people in Sweden favor.
Before that, Milan and Stockholm were the only two remaining candidates after four other cities. They including Sion (Switzerland), Sapporo (Japan), Graz (Austria) and Calgary (Canada) withdrew due to problems related to the size and cost of the event.
The 2026 Winter Olympics will take place from February 6 to 22, while the 2026 Winter Paralympic will be held from March 6 to 15. Before that, the 2022 Winter Olympics will be hosted by Beijing Capital, China.
The event budget is estimated at $ 1.7 billion according to the Italian registry. According to calculations, the organization of the Winter Olympics and Winter Paralympic 2026 will bring at least five billion euros in profit and 20 thousand jobs for the host country.