Covering the first week of events at Milano Cortina 2026 has been enlightening but not straightforward
It’s a seven-hour trip from one end of the opening ceremony to the other. I leave Milan at midday and arrive in Cortina just as the athletes are making their parade around the town square. Cortina’s a one-street town, and it’s been closed down, but everyone’s hanging off the balconies. I see three men in lederhosen, five in identical Wayne Gretzky jerseys, and more people than I can count in luxurious furs. The first person I talk to is a member of the Qatari police force, who is working here as part of a security agreement between the two countries. This is the sixth Olympics I’ve worked on, but the others all took place in summer. I’m pleased to see he looks even more out of place than me.
The Ice Arena in Cortina is the only sports venue I’ve ever been to with a memorial on the wall for a famous photoshoot. Apparently it was here, in 1958, that the legendary Italian photojournalist Giancolombo took his famous images of Brigitte Bardot skating, “capturing the Dolce Vita of Cortina”. Sophia Loren and Ingrid Bergman were both photographed here back then as well, and they filmed the James Bond movie For Your Eyes Only here, too. It is a stunning building. Or it was, before they redeveloped it for these Olympics. Seventy years later, I’m here watching Bruce Mouat and Jen Dodds play Brett Gallant and Jocelyn Peterman in session seven of the mixed doubles curling.
