On February 6, 2026, the world’s top athletes will gather in Milan for the Opening Ceremony of the 2026 Milano Cortina Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. For two weeks, television and social media channels will be overtaken by coverage of the Axel-landing ice skaters and slaloming skiers competing in events across the Lombardy region.
In a joint bid, the cities of Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo were selected by the International Olympic Committee in 2019 to host the games across the valleys of the Dolomites. It’s a first for Milan, which will host skating and other indoor events as well as the opening ceremony, but for Cortina, which previously hosted the Winter Olympics in 1956, it’s a triumphant return.
The Olympic Torch Relay and will make its way through all 110 provinces before arriving in Milan on the eve of the opening ceremony. With the countdown to the winter games now officially on, here’s what to know about the history and the current mood in Cortina ahead of all the fanfare.
The big-event blueprint in Cortina
In 1956, this small ski valley hosted 32 nations for the 7th Winter Olympics, which coincided with the events’ first ever broadcast on international television. This meant that people around the world and see firsthand the beauty of Cortina’s mountains, placing the village on the fast track to becoming one of Italy’s hottest luxury ski resort areas.
The Olympic legacy has stuck with Cortina through the decades, and tourism grew substantially, primarily attracting luxury travelers and celebrities from Frank Sinatra to George Clooney. In many ways, it has the same high-end vibe as Lake Como, but at an altitude of 4,000 feet.
How the city is preparing
It’s been nearly 70 years since Cortina hosted the Olympics, and a lot has changed. Even though the events will be more spread out and the village will only host competitions like alpine skiing, bobsled, luge, skeleton and curling, these Olympics are larger than the ones in 1956, with three times as many competing countries. Many are also expecting another tourism boom once Cortina takes its place back on the world stage, but this time in color and 4K resolution.
In preparation, Cortina d’Ampezzo has been under construction as new hotels get ready to welcome spectators and athletes, and the mountain infrastructure itself gets an update. The clock is counting down in the central piazza, but not everyone in the Dolomites is equally as excited for the expected influx of visitors.
Overtourism is an around the globe, and while it used to be travelers themselves complaining about crowds, local backlash is becoming more common. In Europe, anti-tourism protests in Spain, Portugal and Italy have made headlines. At the heart of the problem is that visitors tend to flock to the same locations that go viral on social media, which can cause crowds even in places as vast as the Dolomites. Just , area farmers installed pay-to-access turnstiles to charge tourists €5 to access one of these “Instagrammable” spots, only reachable by walking across their private property.
Cortina d’Ampezzo is one of the Olympic Games’ tourism success stories, but the games are returning at a time when, globally, there’s more skepticism toward the idea of tourism always being beneficial. As the spotlight returns to the Dolomites, photos of the Alps are sure to be pasted across the vision boards of future visitors who will come for snowy ski sessions and dreamy summer hikes, but how do the locals feel about the attention the games will bring?
The mood in Cortina
On a trip to Cortina this summer, I spoke to local residents and industry professionals about the upcoming games and the challenges of overtourism. Many people were reluctant to speak on the record, but some, like Serena Pilat, who has been teaching yoga in Cortina for ten years, are looking forward to interacting with athletes even though there are challenges to the preparations. “Not everyone is happy because there is construction everywhere and it’s difficult for us to go around and move,” said Pilat, “but we have to look forward to the Olympics.”
Pilat told me that her mother was born in 1956 and grew up hearing about the famous games that took place in her birth year. “Every time I speak with her, she is enthusiastic about it.”
The excitement is there, but plenty of people are thinking about the long-term effects of more tourism and how they might compound with present-day challenges. In a local flower shop, I met 20-year-old employee and student Alex Cerino, who told me he thought the most exciting moment was when the games were first announced.
“I think [the games] will leave an increase in overall prices, so people who don’t own businesses here will be struggling even more,” Cerino said. “Even now, we see lots of people moving out of Cortina just because the rents are really too high.”
Others see the improvements in the city as an investment in Cortina’s future. Carla Medri, the General Manager of Hotel de Len, is focused on the long-term opportunity for Cortina.
“The biggest changes involve both public and private infrastructure, which are being upgraded or newly developed to meet the demands of the Games,” Medri said, pointing out that new hotels are being designed to stay active long after 2026. “The focus is on leaving a sustainable legacy.”
While many foreigners are expected to come to Cortina for the events, I was curious if locals would also find the opportunity to attend a few competitions. “Personally, I would be very pleased to attend one of the four bobsleigh events,” Medri said. “It’s the only discipline I’ve never had the chance to experience live, so it would be a unique and exciting opportunity.”
Although Cerino works as an ice skating instructor when he’s not studying international business, he told me he was unsure if he’d attend the games in Cortina. “I'm just a youngster and I like people, right, but maybe I’m just gonna go abroad.”
He added that many area vacationers who visit outside of specialized events “are not really respectful,” but that crowds who come to town for sporting events like the [mountain running race] are typically “more respectful,” leaving him hopeful about what the mood will be like during the Olympic Games.
