The 2026 Winter Olympics (), officially the XXV Olympic Winter Games and commonly known as Milano Cortina 2026, were an international winter multi-sport event held from 6 to 22 February 2026, at multiple sites across Lombardy, Veneto and Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, with competition in selected events beginning on 4 February 2026. Featuring the debut of ski mountaineering as a Winter Olympic event, Milano Cortina 2026 was the first Olympic Games under the IOC presidency of Kirsty Coventry.
A joint bid by Milan and Cortina d'Ampezzo was awarded on 24 June 2019, at the 134th IOC Session in Lausanne, Switzerland, in preference to another joint bid made by Stockholm and Åre, Sweden. The 2026 Olympic Games were the first to be officially co-hosted by two cities. Milan primarily hosted the ice events, while the remaining events were hosted in clusters around Cortina, Livigno, and Fiemme. These were the third Winter Olympics, and the fourth Olympics overall, to be hosted by Italy, as Cortina d'Ampezzo had previously hosted the 1956 Winter Olympics and Torino hosted the 2006 Winter Olympics.
Norway finished at the top of the medal table for the fourth successive Winter Olympics with 18 gold and 41 medals overall, setting a new record for the largest number of gold and total medals won at a single Winter Olympics. The United States finished second with 12 gold and 33 medals overall, making this the team's most successful Winter Olympics in terms of gold medals. The Netherlands finished in a tie for third with 10 gold and 20 medals overall, also marking this the team's most successful Winter Olympics in terms of gold medals. The host nation Italy finished in a tie for third with 10 gold, but finished fourth due to having fewer silvers and 30 medals overall, setting a new record for number of medals won. Brazil won the first medal, already a gold medal, in their Winter Olympic history; also the first tropical, Latin American, and South American National Olympic Committee to win a medal at the Winter Olympics. Georgia also won the first medal in their Winter Olympic history. Despite early concerns and controversies relating to logistics, the Games were considered a success by the press and observers upon their conclusion.
Bidding process
Host city selection Milan and Cortina d'Ampezzo were selected as the host cities on 24 June 2019, at the 134th IOC Session in Lausanne, Switzerland. The three Italian International Olympic Committee (IOC) members (Franco Carraro, Ivo Ferriani, and Giovanni Malagò) and two Swedish IOC members (Gunilla Lindberg and Stefan Holm) were ineligible to vote as stated in the Olympic Charter.
+ 2026 Winter Olympics bidding results City Nation Votes Milan and Cortina d'Ampezzo 47 Stockholm and Åre 34
Development and preparations Venues
The Games primarily utilised existing venues across Lombardy, Veneto and Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, including those used by the 1956 Winter Olympics previously held in Cortina d'Ampezzo, and by the 2013 Winter Universiade hosted by the province of Trentino. Most ice events, aside from curling, were held in the Milan cluster, while sliding and snow events were held in clusters around Cortina, Valtellina, and the Fiemme Valley. A new 12,000-seat multi-use arena designed by David Chipperfield was constructed in Milan's Santa Giulia district and hosted ice hockey. Stadio San Siro in Milan hosted the opening ceremony, and the historic Verona Arena in Verona hosted the closing ceremony. Athletes stayed in several Olympic villages, depending on the location of their sport: Milan Olympic Village, Cortina d'Ampezzo Olympic Village, or in hotels.
Milan cluster Venue Events Capacity Status Milano San Siro Olympic Stadium Opening ceremony 75,817 Existing Milano Santa Giulia Ice Hockey Arena Ice hockey (preliminaries and finals) 12,000 New Milano Rho Ice Hockey Arena Ice hockey (preliminaries) 6,000Existing with temporary stands Milano Speed Skating Stadium Speed skating 7,500Milano Ice Skating Arena Figure skating11,500Existing Short track speed skating
Cortina d'Ampezzo cluster Venue Events Capacity Status Tofane Alpine Skiing Centre Alpine skiing (women) 7,000Existing Anterselva Biathlon Arena Biathlon 19,000 Cortina Curling Olympic Stadium Curling 3,000Cortina Sliding Centre Bobsleigh5,500New Luge Skeleton
Valtellina cluster Venue Events Capacity StatusStelvio Ski Centre Alpine skiing (men)7,000Existing Ski mountaineeringLivigno Snow Park Snowboarding 2,000Freestyle skiing 8,400 Livigno Aerials & Moguls Park 3,000
Val di Fiemme cluster Venue Events Capacity StatusPredazzo Ski Jumping Stadium Ski jumping5,000Existing Nordic combinedTesero Cross-Country Skiing Stadium Cross-country skiing15,000 Nordic combined
Verona Venue Events Capacity Status Verona Olympic Arena Closing ceremony 15,000 Existing
Speed skating venue selection During the bidding process, the bidding committee proposed that the speed skating events could be held at the existing Ice Rink Piné in Baselga di Piné. Despite the infrastructure being ready, it required a roof, which impact and cost studies indicated would be costly, potentially exceeding the budget. The committee deliberated three choices: building an ice rink in the pavilions of Fiera Milano (with a possibility to be permanent or temporary), options that would require significant structural work, or moving the events to the Oval Lingotto in the city of Turin, which required no structural changes.
The Turin venue was constructed to host speed skating during the 2006 Winter Olympics; after the Games, it hosted events such as exhibitions, fairs, and conferences. The venue hosted the same sport in the 2007 Winter Universiade, but it has remained iceless since. In April 2023, it was estimated that the temporary ice rink in Fiera Milano would cost nearly €20 million, which would be paid for with private funds. The proposal to use Turin's Oval Lingotto received opposition from Milan-area officials, as Turin was part of the initial stages of the project but later withdrew. One of the spokespersons to reject this proposal was Giuseppe Sala (the mayor of Milan) and officials from the host regions of Lombardy and Veneto. Fiera Milano was confirmed as the speed skating venue in April 2023.
Olympic torch
The Olympic torch relay started on 26 November 2025, with the flame lighting in Olympia, Greece, and concluded on 6 February 2026, in Milan, Italy, coinciding with the opening ceremony at Stadio San Siro. Along with the 13 regional units and seven regions in Greece, the flame visited the 110 provinces of Italy, making 60 stops over 63 days across . The Olympic torch was unveiled on 14 April 2025, in parallel events held in Milan and Osaka, Japan. It was simultaneously revealed at the Triennale di Milano and at the Italian pavilion at Expo 2025 as a way of connecting the two sister cities, as Milan had previously hosted Expo 2015. The Olympic torch is light blue, whereas the corresponding Paralympic torch is bronze coloured. Named "Essential"; developed by Eni and its subsidiary Versalis, designed by Studio Carlo Ratti Associati and produced in Italy by Cavagna Group, the torches are made primarily of an alloy of recycled aluminium and bronze. They run bio-LPG, a fuel made from renewable materials, produced at the biorefinery in Gela, and have been designed to be refilled up to ten times in order to cut down on the number of torches produced.
Following the lighting of the Olympic flame in Olympia, there was a low-key handover ceremony in Athens on 4 December 2025. The flame then arrived in Rome to visit all 110 provinces of Italy, involving 10,001 torchbearers. The torch was in Naples for Christmas, in Bari for New Year's Eve, and in Cortina d'Ampezzo on 26 January to commemorate the 70th anniversary of it hosting the 1956 Winter Olympics. While the torch was in Piedmont, a tribute was planned for skier Matilde Lorenzi, who died while training in October 2024. The torch relay visited every UNESCO World Heritage Site in Italy. On 29 November 2024, Italian comedy trio were announced as official narrators for the torch relay.
Medals
On 15 July 2025, the official medals of the Games were unveiled in Venice, designed as two halves that symbolise the culmination of an athlete and Para athlete's journey and of all those who have walked beside them along the way; it was created by the Istituto Poligrafico e Zecca dello Stato (IPZS). The medals featured a design that placed emotion and teamwork at its core. They had the traditional Olympic five-ring symbol on one side, with an inscription on the reverse that detailed the event and commemorated the venue. The medals for several athletes broke after they received them.
The Games Opening ceremony
The opening ceremony was held on 6 February 2026, at Stadio San Siro in Milan, titled ("Harmony"). The ceremony was produced by Banijay Live (Balich Wonder Studio). Marco Balich, Creative Lead of the Opening Ceremony, explained that the word harmony derives from Ancient Greek: "It means 'bringing together' in musical terms, different elements." The opening ceremony also featured special performances from American singer Mariah Carey, as well as Italian artists Laura Pausini and Andrea Bocelli. Two Olympic cauldrons were lit in both Milan and Cortina d'Ampezzo, a first in Games' history.
Sports The 2026 Winter Olympics featured 116 medal events in 16 disciplines, an increase of seven events and one discipline over Beijing 2022. New medal events included ski mountaineering, men's and women's dual moguls in freestyle skiing, the return of the men's and women's doubles in luge (replacing the open doubles event), men's and women's team combined events in alpine skiing, women's large hill individual in ski jumping, and a mixed relay team event in skeleton. The Games had the highest percentage of women's participation in Winter Olympic history until that point (Nordic combined remained the only Winter Olympic sport in which only men compete), at 47%.
The alpine mixed team parallel event was dropped, while team ski jumping, alpine combined, and Nordic combined all switched to being pairs events. Team combined replaced the individual alpine combined due to evolving technical and training requirements that had diminished its popularity; it was dropped from the FIS Alpine Ski World Cup circuit in 2020, and contested at the Olympics for the final time in 2022. Nordic combined switched to a large hill/ course, while women raced the same distances as men in cross-country skiing.
At the 138th IOC Session on 20 July 2021, the IOC approved a proposal by the Fondazione Milano Cortina 2026 to add ski mountaineering as a debuting optional sport. It consisted of three medal events: men's sprint, women's sprint, and mixed relay.
In February 2024, the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) reached an agreement with the National Hockey League (NHL) to allow the league's professional players to participate in the men's hockey tournament for the first time since 2014. NHL players were originally scheduled to return to Olympic hockey in 2022, but the league and its players' union opted out due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Numbers in parentheses indicate the number of medal events contested in each discipline.
Closing ceremony
The closing ceremony was held at the Verona Arena in Verona on 22 February 2026, entitled "Beauty in Action". Along with cultural segments, the ceremony featured closing remarks and the formal handover to the French Alps as the host region of the 2030 Winter Olympics. The first name confirmed to perform at the closing ceremony was world-renowned ballet dancer Roberto Bolle, the principal dancer at La Scala Theatre Ballet. He and director Alfredo Accatino had previously worked together on the 2006 Winter Olympics opening ceremony. Some sequences of the ceremony were held at the Teatro Filarmonico.