This is the sixth in a series by Around the Rings analyzing the seven declared interested 2026 Olympic bidders announced by the IOC on April 3.
(ATR) The process to choose and create an Italian bid for the 2026 Winter Games is in a holding pattern until a national government can be formed.
The Italian National Olympic Committee (CONI) President Giovanni Malago reiterated at CONI’s National Council meeting on Monday that the formation of a new government remains the sticking point. But according to a CONI statement, he told the council there is "great and widespread national interest regarding the potential to host the Olympic Games".
CONI has already completed a feasibility study for the bid and will present it to the government once it is formed, which is expected to happen by late April or early May.
Around the Rings is told that all the main Italian political parties are in favor of a bid, including the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement (M5S). For M5S, this represents an about face when it comes to the Olympics. Rome Mayor Virginia Raggi, a member of M5S, torpedoed the city’s bid for the 2024 Summer Games when she refused to support it after being elected on an anti-Olympics platform in 2016.
Providing the new national government signs off on the project, CONI would then be able to pursue a bid, which became a little bit more complicated thanks to a last-minute addition of a second bid city.
After CONI had already sent its letter of intent to the IOC to enter the dialogue phase of the bidding process with a joint bid featuring Milan and Turin, the mayor of Cortina d'Ampezzo and the president of the Veneto region sent a confirmation letter to CONI asking for Cortina to be added to the list. In the end, CONI sent two letters of intent to the IOC.
Cortina hosted the Winter Olympics in 1956 while Turin did the honors in 2006.
CONI tells ATR that there is still plenty of time to prepare an Italian bid that will make the cut for the candidature phase at the end of October.
But until a national government is created, the bid process is stuck at the starting line.
Homepage photo: CONI
Written and reported by Gerard Farek
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