Dispersed Winter Olympics sites ‘have added complexity’: Coventry

IOC president Kirsty Coventry said the dispersed sites of the 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics had “added additional complexities” to the organisation of the Games that open on February 6.

Coventry, the former Zimbabwean swimmer who will be overseeing her first Games since taking over from Thomas Bach as head of the International Olympic Committee, also said there was a balance to strike in future between “making decisions for sustainable reasons” and the “experience… for athletes”.

Milan-Cortina organisers have used largely existing sites — many of which have been used to host World Cup and world championship events — for these Games, but as a result they stretch over 22,000 km2 (8,500 square miles) from the Dolomites to the Po Valley.

“I do believe that we took the right decision in having a more dispersed games, but it has, and I think we can all say very openly and honestly, it has added additional complexities,” Coventry said.

“I think initially we all thought, ‘oh, well, we’ll just have it be a little bit more dispersed because that’s more sustainable’. Yes, that is very true, but it has added additional complexities in the delivery of the Games.”

She said one effect of the geographical spread of the Games sites was that Olympic host broadcasting teams had been scattered and couldn’t help in other venues that were too far away.

“I think we are already seeing that what we’re going to be able to learn from Milano-Cortina is at the end of the Games, we will be able to take these things and look at it and almost somehow maybe come up with a cost.”