With precisely a yr to go till the opening ceremony of the Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics, Sky Sports activities Information takes a more in-depth have a look at the upcoming competitors.

On February 6, 2026, the Video games return to Europe’s mountains after 12 years, and to Italy for the primary time in 20 years.

Milan Cortina received the precise in 2019 to host the Video games, beating competitors from Stockholm.

Milan Cortina would be the first Winter Video games with basically two cities ‘co-hosting’. Milan will primarily maintain the ‘indoor ice’ occasions whereas Cortina and surrounding clusters the ‘snow sports activities’.

Why are the 2026 Video games vital inside sport and past?

The Video games return to Europe. The earlier two editions of the Winter Olympics had been hosted in South Korea and China with the Beijing 2022 Video games closely impacted by stringent Covid laws.

The final Video games in Europe in 2014 had been hosted by Russia within the metropolis of Sochi the place solely after the Video games had concluded did the extent of widespread state-sponsored doping by the Russian state emerge, which in the end led to Russia’s ban from many worldwide competitions.

On a wider geo-political scale, three days after Russian President Vladimir Putin triumphantly closed the Sochi Olympics on February 23, Russia invaded and annexed Crimea from Ukraine.

Local weather Change and the way forward for the Winter Olympics can be on the agenda. Because of the planet’s altering local weather fewer areas sooner or later will be capable to sustainably host conventional winter sports activities.

All seven potential IOC presidential candidates – with an election coming in March – have raised this challenge inside their manifestos.

Johan Eliasch, present president of FIS – Snowboarding and Snowboarding’s world governing physique – and in addition one of many candidates – has mentioned the Winter Video games ought to be awarded on a rotation system and that most likely not more than 10 areas on the planet will be capable to host the Video games.

Seb Coe, one other candidate to change into IOC president, added that the Winter Olympics might additionally see new occasions like cross-country working and a few historically summer time Olympic sports activities which might be performed indoors transfer to a Winter Video games setting.

And talking of Coe and Eliasch, by the point the 2026 Milan-Cortina Olympics open, the IOC could have a brand new president following Thomas Bach’s 12-year tenure. A brand new president, relying on who’s elected, might result in vital change inside the Olympic motion.

Concern over readiness of monitor for sliding sports activities

With a yr to go, one of many key services of any Winter Olympics – the sliding monitor used for bobsleigh, skeleton and luge – has not been accomplished.

So frightened are the IOC and native organisers {that a} reserve monitor is on standby. The issue is that the reserve monitor will not be in Italy. It isn’t even in Europe. Lake Placid within the USA is the back-up if the 1650m monitor within the Dolomites can’t be accomplished. Presently 190 staff are on shift seven days per week. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has change into concerned as nationwide pleasure is at stake – Italy needs these Olympics to be 100 per cent Italian.

The choice of shifting sliding occasions to a different monitor in Italy are not an possibility – the 2006 monitor used for the Turin Olympics when Italy final hosted the Winter Video games faces demolition after being left unused following these Video games.

Snow, or lack of it, can be a difficulty. Snowfall in European mountains has decreased quickly within the final 40 years and 90 per cent of Italian ski resorts depend on synthetic snow makers to enhance their pistes and runs.

Whereas synthetic snowmakers have been used earlier than at Olympic Video games, they use giant quantities of water and a major quantity of power is required to energy the machines.

Will crew GB bounce again from 2022 ‘disappointment’?

Not generally known as a Winter Olympics powerhouse, Workforce GB has upped its sport prior to now few many years however the final Video games – in Beijing in 2022 – the place they received simply two medals was described as a “disappointment” by UK Sport.

In 2014 and 2018 although, Workforce GB received 5 medals at every Video games, matching a document haul for any British crew stretching again over 100 years.

For Milan Cortina, hopes are once more excessive as a number of medal candidates are performing to world-class commonplace of their occasions. Workforce GB will hope the sliding monitor delays and points are resolved because it could possibly be a supply of medals. The four-man bobsleigh led by Brad Corridor has this season been on the rostrum recurrently, together with profitable gold at a World Cup occasion in Germany final month the place they grew to become the primary non-German crew to win the occasion since 2012.

Each the ladies’s and males’s skeleton groups are robust as soon as once more. Workforce GB has, due to the ladies’s squads, received medals recurrently since Shelly Rudman’s in 2006, together with golds for Amy Williams in 2010 and Lizzy Yarnold profitable again to again Gold in 2014 and 2018.

Freya Tarbit and Amelia Coltman have each medalled this season at world occasions, whereas within the males’s occasion Matt Weston claimed gold in January.

Freestyle skier Kirsty Muir is among the many world’s greatest. The 20-year-old received X Video games silver and bronze in 2023. Presently out of motion recovering from an ACL harm, her purpose is to be match and able to medal in 12 months’ time.

Elsewhere 17-year outdated snowboarder Mia Brookes has been on World Cup podiums, whereas 20 years her senior “The Rocket” Dave Ryding continues to combine it with the world’s greatest slalom skiers. Ryding, one of many sports activities nice characters, can be competing in his fifth Video games ought to he qualify for Milan 2026.

Determine skaters Lilah Worry and Lewis Gibson are additionally real medal contenders given their current success at each the World and European Championships. They’ve simply returned from Estonia with a bronze from this yr’s European Championships, making it a bronze, silver and silver at their final three championships.

Now beginning to beat their rivals for main medals, the tag of the brand new ‘Torvill & Dean’ has been positioned upon them. Assured and fearless, they’re embracing the comparability though anticipate much less ‘Bolero’ and extra excessive octane ‘Beyonce’ from their routines.