On the day when a Cortinadespite protests from environmentalists, the worksite to build the bob track in view of the 2026 Winter Olympics, the members of the Cio, the International Olympic Committee, who will hold their fifth meeting in Venice. The commissioners will have to examine the dossiers on the organization of the Games: le infrastructural works, organizational problems, budgets, the sponsorship and information campaigns. In the program of the session – held for three days in a hotel in the Serenissima – there is also a visit with an overnight stay in Cortina, scheduled for 21 February: the aim is to ascertain at what stage the works for the construction of the highly contested runway have reached “Eugenio Monti”, entrusted to Pizzarotti Of Parmathe company awarded the tender launched at the last minute at the behest of the Minister of Infrastructure Matteo Salvini. Pizzarotti is the only company that has accepted the challenge of completing the work on the structural part of the track within March 2025therefore in thirteen months, to allow testing of the system.
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It will be interesting to know the opinion of the Committee (which will hold a press conference in Venice on Friday) on theincredible delay accumulated by the Italians. They have passed more than 1,700 days since Milan and Cortina won the organization of the Olympics, they have been missing just over 700 at the inauguration on 6 February 2026: not only has the track not been built, but the Ronco forest on which it will have to be built it has not yet been demolished in the part necessary to allow the works. The timetable of the construction site, lasting a total of 625 days, starts now: after having deforested and leveled the area, a village will have to be built to house the teams of workers, then the actual work will begin. The IOC though he doesn’t trust promises and he demonstrated it with numerous, worried declarations: for this reason in the next few days, during the meetings with the managers of Fondazione Milano Cortina 2026, the inspectors will verify the existence of a “piano B†, or the use of a structure abroad (probably in Switzerland or the USA) in the event that “Eugenio Monti†is not ready. In this hypothesis, Cortina would find itself with a new runway (but downsized compared to the first project) costing 120 million eurosnot usable for Games.
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“We are waiting for the March 2025 deadline. If the track is not tested in time, we will turn to Court of Auditors because you evaluate the existence of a colossal damage to the state†declared the regional councilor Cristina Guarda, of Europa Verde, during the event which was held in the Bob Bar square, the access point to the construction sites. “Investing all that money in a track, in the face of ongoing climate change, would appear to be one folly except that today some politicians seem to have abdicated their sense of responsibility towards the common good,” he attacks. Representatives of the Mountain Wilderness associations attended the rally, CaiWwf, Peraltrestrade, Our ItalyClimate Venice Group, Extinction Rebellion, Ultima Generazione, Friday for future, Pfas.land, Le Voci di Cortina and Cortina Bene Comune, as well as representatives of regional groups from Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Trentino-Alto Adige and Lombardy. A few hundred people held a public meeting and then followed the route of the new trail. Some hugged trees, others carried protest banners. A peaceful and at times painful demonstration. “More than a sustainable Olympics. They were supposed to be free of charge, but we have already exceeded an expected expense of five billion euros†, summed up the environmentalist Luigi Casanova.