The floor-to-ceiling home windows in Andrea Varnier’s Forty fourth-floor workplace supply a sweeping view of Milan and a few of the mountains that may host the 2026 Winter Olympics, however Varnier jokes that the panorama will not be for him. He is sort of by no means on this workplace, he admits. He not often makes use of the desk. There is simply no time to sit down nonetheless, he says with a shrug.
The Milan-Cortina Winter Games are nonetheless nearly three years away. But Varnier, a veteran of earlier Olympics in Turin, Rio de Janeiro and Beijing, is aware of higher than most how briskly these years will go. He additionally is aware of how a lot work there may be left to do.
What Milan-Cortina organizers and the International Olympic Committee are planning for 2026 is probably the most sprawling Winter Games in historical past: determine skating and ice hockey in Milan, the cosmopolitan hub of Italy’s north; freestyle snowboarding and snowboarding in Livigno, near the Swiss border; biathlon in Anterselva, a German-speaking area within the shadow of Austria; and curling, bobsled and Alpine snowboarding in Cortina d’Ampezzo, the positioning of the 1956 Winter Games.
The excellent news? About 90 % of the competitors venues for the Games exist already, Olympic officers stated. The dangerous? At least two main parts, the Olympic Village and the hockey enviornment, are nonetheless within the earliest levels of building, and greater tasks like highways and rail hyperlinks are out of the organizers’ management.
In an interview final month within the workplace he not often makes use of, Varnier, who took on the chief government position final November, mentioned managing an occasion unfold over 8,500 sq. miles; how Italy’s mannequin is perhaps the way forward for the Olympics; and what retains him up at evening.
This interview has been edited and condensed for readability.
The IOC has lately embraced this new sort of sprawling Olympics. Torino was huge. Vancouver was huge. Beijing was huge. But that is greater?
This is unquestionably greater.
And so that you’re proposing competitors clusters somewhat than a single website?
We have four-slash-five of these. Plus, a closing ceremony within the Roman amphitheater in Verona. Which provides an additional attention-grabbing merchandise, however in fact additionally an additional complication. But the thought of the Winter Games is that they should be unfold out as a result of there isn’t any mountain metropolis or mountain village that’s ready these days to maintain the Games.
That’s why you want Milan.
You want town. So it is at all times a metropolis someplace. And a mountain shut sufficient to that. It will get farther and farther. So Torino. Then Vancouver. And then Beijing. Here it is totally different. It’s a totally totally different idea. The concept right here is to, initially, go the place the infrastructure and the expertise is. So that is the best way it was chosen.
So there may be Milan, which is probably the most modern metropolis we’ve on this nation, however the place there may be not a selected custom for winter sports activities. But it is Milano. And then in fact we go to Cortina, with its historical past and its expertise in Alpine snowboarding. They have a really robust custom in curling. They have an unbelievable historical past in bobsleigh and the sliding sports activities. Then we go to Anterselva: That’s among the best, greatest acknowledged websites for biathlon on the planet. Then we’ve Val di Fiemme, the place Nordic sports activities are a really longstanding custom. Several editions of world championships. So there may be already the infrastructure. Yes, we’ve to modernize. But it is already there, so we do not have to construct.
The bulk of the competitors venues exist already, which can save on price range and time. But how do you join all this stuff?
It’s essential that we perceive that there is a new system. Because if this idea works, it is going to imply extra alternatives for different nations to host the Games. So transportation, for instance: We will do in-cluster transportation, and then we are going to advocate using public transportation between clusters as a lot as attainable.
We’re attempting to rationalize the complete system for this Games, and hopefully to go away as a legacy for future potential organizing committees or candidate cities, that they will consider the Games in a bigger space, to contain a bigger piece of the inhabitants, to make use of present infrastructure.
Is that as a result of the IOC cannot ask cities or nations to spend $50 billion, as Russia did for the Sochi Games? Because no one would wish to host?
The threat is that no one will do the Games in Europe anymore. The Winter Games. The Summer Games is a special story. And Europe, in any case, it is the center of winter sports activities. I imply, with all due respect to everyone: It was born right here, and the Alps are the Alps.
The Games need to go all over the place, and to as many nations as attainable. But if we do not discover a totally different system, in Europe will probably be extraordinarily troublesome. Because, I imply, this nation continues to be a G7 nation, and for those who can not afford the Games, then who can afford to host the Games?
When you consider establishing experiences somewhere else for folks, it is nearly as for those who’re operating a number of Games directly.
In a approach, sure. But the precept that we would like is that, initially, it is the identical thread that connects every part and the expertise that you just stay. Of course, the sports activities are totally different, however they’re anyway.
How is the connection with the IOC? After Pyeongchang and Beijing, they should be fairly comfy to be again on what’s acquainted floor for them.
I can not reply on behalf of the IOC, however it’s a nice consolation for us as an organizing committee, and I’m certain for them. They are very concerned as a result of they see us as a chance for optimization of the Winter Games. Because a few of the issues that we’ll begin right here could turn into a brand new norm for the longer term.
What retains you up at evening?
Oh, so many issues. But largely that point is brief. We need to get better a few of the time that was misplaced.
You have to grasp that this organizing committee began in January 2020, as a result of the project of the Games was in June 2019, and this nation was absolutely closed for 3 and a half months, principally. And it was very troublesome to start out a company like this in such a brand new approach. And so the pandemic continued and then when it completed the struggle began, so it was a troublesome time. Now we do not have excuses anymore.
Another problem is to search out the businesses to cowl that a part of the price range that must be lined by home companions. And you can not contain companions, on the related price, only for the final six months. So that is for me probably the most important factor.
I are likely to sleep, however that worries me: time and cash.