While reflection is underway in Italy concerning the location of the bobsleigh, luge and skeleton events, the City of Turin has decided to take the lead by adopting a motion aimed at supporting the rehabilitation of the Cesana site which was used during the 2006 Winter Games.
View of the Cesana Torinese track during the Turin 2006 Winter Games (Credits – Flickr / _andre_85_)
Determined not to miss its chance to be partly associated with the Milan-Cortina 2026 Olympic and Paralympic project, the City of Turin hopes to be able to join the adventure of the Games, twenty years after having been the scene of the 2006 edition .
If the local authorities had initially chosen not to make common cause when installing the candidacy alongside Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo, the compasses have changed direction in recent months, offering in fact a new opportunity for the city of Piedmont to cling to the moving locomotive of the planetary event.
In light of the questions raised by the abandonment of the project to renovate the open-air speed ring at Baselga di Pinè (Trentino-Alto Adige), the Turin option was thus mentioned at the start of 2023 for ensure the holding of speed skating events, thanks to the planned mobilization of the 2006 Games site.
But despite a proposal based on the use of an existing site requiring only rehabilitation of the enclosure, and despite the support shown by the former President of the Italian Council, current Minister of Infrastructure and Transport, Matteo Salvini, the strong opposition expressed by the public authorities of Lombardy – particularly in Milan – ultimately got the better of this perspective.
Now, a new chance presents itself in Turin, while the development of the track intended to host the bobsleigh, luge and skeleton competitions gives rise to yet another soap opera in the already chaotic preparations for the 2026 Olympics.
The option of reclassifying the historic track Eugenio Monti in Cortina d’Ampezzo has indeed proven to be expensive, with a cost of around 85 million euros – and even recent projections announcing a possible bill of 100 to 120 million euros – in addition to causing a shortage interest from companies that did not respond to the call for tenders launched at the start of summer.
The option of using an existing site abroad – in Austria or Switzerland in particular – was once presented as a first-rate alternative. However, the Italian authorities and the organizers of the Milan-Cortina 2026 Games now wish to favor a transalpine site with the aim of maintaining all the competitions in Italy.
Also, although Cortina d’Ampezzo remains in the race, with a project which would nevertheless be revised downwards, Cesana – or Cesana Torinese in Italian – could in fine be chosen due to the experience acquired during the Turin 2006 Games.
Located within the territorial perimeter of the former Province of Turin, which became the Metropolitan City of Turin in 2015, Cesana would be able to benefit from a makeover estimated at around 34 million euros in order to put the city back on the map. the scene the track closed only six years after the end of the 2006 Olympics.
With this in mind, Turin elected officials are mobilizing, as evidenced by the motion adopted this week by an overwhelming majority by the Municipal Council which asks local institutions, namely the City of Turin, the Metropolitan City of Turin and the Piedmont Region, to work together to create the necessary conditions for the selection of the Cesana site and its upgrading.
As recommended in the document, this support would also be beneficial in order to organize on site the World Championships by 2028.
While awaiting new developments on the thorny issue – knowing that the organizers of the Games will begin examining the options available by the end of November – the municipal motion has in any case garnered the support of 27 elected officials sweeping different political sides, from the Democrats to the representatives of the Northern League, or Brothers of Italy of the President of the Italian Council, Giorgia Meloni. Conversely, 3 elected officials voted against, all from the 5 Star Movement (M5S).
