Sliding centre for Italy’s 2026 Winter Olympic Games hit by sabotage, says agency

Milan: The construction site of a new sliding centre for the 2026 Milano-Cortina Winter Olympics has been disrupted by “sabotage”, a government agency said on.

Italy is rushing to complete the sliding venue for the bobsleigh, luge and skeleton competitions in the Alpine town of Cortina d’Ampezzo, which will co-host the Feb 6-22 Games in 2026.

Simico, the agency in charge of building the infrastructure for the Games, said in a statement a refrigeration pipe was removed from the venue.

The pipe blocked a road, and “created considerable disruptions on the construction site, ahead of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) visit scheduled on March 4,” the statement added.

Italy’s infrastructure minister Matteo Salvini said on X the incident was “disturbing and serious”.

The full rebuilding of Cortina’s Eugenio Monti sliding track has an estimated cost of €118 million (S$165 million) and is part of a €3.4 billion budget for the infrastructure linked to the Games.

The project to rebuild the plant has been controversial since the beginning.

The IOC repeatedly voiced concerns over the planned new track, saying the use of an existing sliding centre outside Italy would keep costs down and cut preparation time.

However, organisers opted to build a new facility instead of using an existing one in a neighbouring country.

Critics have argued that the revamped sliding venue risks being a white elephant, given the limited number of elite competitors in sliding events and the high venue management costs.

Last week, Italian sports minister Andrea Abodi insisted to reporters in Rome that the decision announced in February 2024 to try to rebuild the Eugenio Monti track in Cortina d’Ampezzo, reversing a previous announcement that the sliding events would be held abroad, would turn out to be the right one.

“We are convinced that the facility… will become a centre of excellence that we will offer, not just for the Games but also afterwards, will be a modern, competitive track which will be every bit as good as other facilities,” he said.

Organisers face the prospect of the bobsleigh, luge and skeleton events, for which 12 gold medals will be awarded, being moved to Lake Placid in the United States if the Cortina track is not completed in time for an approval deadline in March.

Meanwhile, French skier Nils Alphand was evacuated by helicopter after he was knocked out Feb 21 when he fell during a World Cup training run in Crans Montana, Switzerland.

After the 28-year-old fell about 50 seconds into his downhill run, emergency staff put Alphand in a neck brace. He was placed on a stretcher, winched up into a helicopter and flown to a hospital in Sion.

There the diagnosis was encouraging.

“Having lost consciousness, he underwent a body scan, which turned out to be normal. Nils will nevertheless be kept under observation,” said the French Ski Federation.

The son of three-time downhill World Cup champion, Luc Alphand, Nils Alphand had been the best of the French team in the first training session at Crans Montana on Feb 20, clocking 17th, in preparation for the downhill on Feb 22 and the super-G on Feb 23.

It marks the latest in a series of serious accidents on the World Cup circuit this year and the fourth to hit the French.

Their leading skier Cyprien Sarrazin suffered a serious head injury in December. That was followed by season-ending injuries to teammates Blaise Giezendanner and Alexis Pinturault.

In November, American Mikaela Shiffrin suffered a perforated pelvis, impaling herself as she crashed in the giant slalom in Vermont, while Czech Tereza Nova was this week woken from the artificial coma she had been placed in after crashing in downhill training at Garmisch-Partenkirchen in Germany in January.