Italy given green light for Winter Olympics bobsleigh track
After numerous setbacks, controversies and only 13 months of construction, a feat hailed by politicians as "an Italian miracle," the sliding track for the Milan-Cortina Games now appears to be fit for purpose.
"We have successfully completed the pre-approval test runs as part of the homologation procedure," said bobsleigh federation chief Ivo Ferriani of Italy in a joint statement with Simico, the Olympic delivery company.
"Minor adjustments still need to be made and the main focus must remain on completing the construction work, but the feedback we have received from our technical experts, athletes and their coaches has been very positive," Ferriani added.
The official stamp of approval comes three days after the Cortina d'Ampezzo track's inauguration.
Italy's Mattia Gaspari may not be among the gold medallists in the Dolomites from February 6 to 22 next year, but the 31-year-old skeleton specialist made history on Tuesday as the first to race down the much-discussed track.
Since Monday 60 athletes representing the disciplines of bobsleigh, luge and skeleton have put the slope through its paces with test runs.
Work to finish facilities for athletes at the Eugenio Monti slope will now resume.
"The work is scheduled to be completed on November 5, 2025," Simico stated.
When construction began in February 2024, late for a project of this scale and complexity, many doubted that it could be completed.
Not Matteo Salvini, the second-in-command and Minister of Transport in Giorgia Meloni's hard-right government.
Salvini relaunched the project at the end of 2023, when organisers wanted to relocate the 12 bobsleigh, luge, and skeleton events to neighbouring Austria or Switzerland, because of the lack of a functioning track in Italy.
"I want to thank the workers who came from all over the world to Cortina to create this miracle that represents Italy so well," the Italian deputy premier said this week.
In January, Italian 2026 Winter Olympic organisers had named American ski resort Lake Placid as their "Plan B" should Cortina d'Ampezzo not be ready in time.
Friday's announcement suggests 'Plan A' is firmly on course for use in 11 months time.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Local Italy
13 hours ago
- Local Italy
Reader question: Do I have to vote in all five of Italy's upcoming referendums?
Question: I want to vote in Italy's upcoming citizenship referendum, but I don't have an opinion on the issues raised in the other referendums. If I want to vote on the citizenship question, do I have to have to vote in these as well? On Sunday, June 8th and Monday, June 9th, Italians will be asked to vote on a proposal to create a quicker path to citizenship through residency by cutting the current 10-year residency requirement down to five years. But there are also four other referendums being held on the same dates which are unrelated to the citizenship question. These concern labour law provisions on unlawful dismissals, severance compensation in small businesses, employment contract conditions and contractors' liability over workplace injuries. You can see them all reproduced here on the interior ministry's website and learn more details about them (in Italian) here. Although these referendums are being held simultaneously, you don't have to vote in all of them. As lawyer Giuseppe Di Palo explains, when you go to the polling station, you can ritirare (pick up) just one ballot, all five, or any number in between. Each ballot is on a different coloured card and is marked with a number from one to five. The citizenship referendum ballot is no. 5, on yellow card. When you arrive at the polling station and identify yourself with your tessera elettorale (electoral card), you can choose to pick up only the ballot papers for the referendums you want to vote in. If you do pick up all five ballots, you don't have to mark all of them; you can leave any of them blank when you deposit them in the ballot box. The key difference is in whether you count towards the voter turnout. All five referendums require a minimum turnout, or quorum, of more than 50 percent of Italian voters for the results to be valid. The quorum is calculated separately for each vote. If you deposit a blank ballot paper, it counts towards reaching the quorum for that referendum; if you don't pick up a ballot, it won't count towards reaching that quorum. Key figures in Italy's ruling coalition, which opposes all five referendums, have publicly called on supporters to abstain from voting on June 8th-9th to prevent all votes from reaching the quorum. If you are registered to vote from abroad by post, you should have received all five ballots to your foreign-registered address in a (plico elettorale) containing instructions on how to return them to the relevant Italian consulate. Guidelines on how to send in your completed ballots might vary slightly between different countries, so it's important to read through all the instructions and follow them carefully. As with voting in person, you should be able to choose whether to return any or all of the ballots, marked or unmarked. For your vote to count, you must ensure that the completed ballots are received by your Italian consulate by 4pm local time on Thursday, June 5th at the latest.
Local Italy
3 days ago
- Local Italy
Anger mounts in Florence as closure looms for US consulate
The Florence Consulate is one of over 100 bureaus and offices targeted for closure under President Donald Trump's sweeping plans to downsize the US State Department to slash costs and improve efficiency. Besides the Florence Consulate, other consulates slated for closure include Rennes, Lyon, Strasbourg, and Bordeaux in France, as well as Dusseldorf, Leipzig, and Hamburg in Germany. First announced in late April, plans to overhaul the State Department were formally presented to Congress by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Thursday. "The reorganisation plan will result in a more agile Department, better equipped to promote America's interests and keep Americans safe across the world," Rubio said in a statement. The congressional notification sparked anger among Americans in Florence, reigniting concerns that thousands of US residents and visitors in the area may soon be stripped of quick access to essential services including emergency assistance in the event of natural disasters and hospitalisations. Mary Lokken, a California native who has been living in Florence for over 40 years, told La Repubblica that closing the Florence Consulate means 'depriving us of services that we all use at least once – from the issuance of visas and passports to information on taxes and elections, and even social benefits". Lindsey Brock, a member of local activist group Good Trouble Firenze, also voiced anger over the planned closure, calling it 'yet another cut to services aimed at American citizens'. 'Foreign residents and tourists will pay the real price," she added. According to La Repubblica, the Florence Consulate offers support to around four million visitors every year, as well as over 200 businesses operating between Italy and the US. If it were to close, US nationals in the area would need to travel to one of the country's other consulates in Milan or Naples, or the Rome Embassy to access help. The planned closure is 'madness,' Maurizio Mancianti, president of the Tuscan American Association, said. This 'directly affects all American citizens who live or pass through here', as well as 'anyone who needs to travel to or run a business in the United States,' he added. Plans to close the Florence Consulate were also harshly criticised by Mayor Sara Funaro, who called the move 'reckless' given 'the many Americans who study and work' in the city. Funaro said she intended to ask Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani and US authorities for clarification on the matter. 'Florence cannot be written off like this," she said. Following last week's developments, the Florence Consulate said it would 'continue carrying out its usual activities' pending official communications from the US.
Local Italy
6 days ago
- Local Italy
FACT CHECK: Does Italy grant more citizenships than any other EU country?
As Italy prepares to vote on June 8-9th in a referendum on easing rules on applying for citizenship through naturalisation, or residency, the main argument against the proposal remains that it would make things too 'easy' for applicants. The strongest opposition to changing the rules comes from the government itself, with senior ministers of the ruling hard-right parties calling for supporters to abstain from voting, and insisting that making it easier for long-term residents to become Italian nationals would be 'dangerous'. According to Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, leader of the anti-immigrant League party, cutting the wait time to apply from ten years down to five would mean "indiscriminately extending" the granting of citizenship. Italy is already 'the first European country in terms of granting citizenship every year,' he claimed at a press conference on May 19th. But data shows us that this is not strictly true, particularly when it comes to applications via the residency route. Italy has three main routes for citizenship applications: ancestry, residency, and marriage. Ancestry has long been the most commonly-taken route, followed by residency. According to the most recent statistics available from Eurostat, in 2023 Italy granted citizenship to some 214,000 residents. Spain meanwhile approved 240,000 requests from residents in the same year. In 2022, Italy was actually the European country with the highest number of applications for citizenship via residency granted, while in 2021 it ranked fourth, behind Spain, France and Germany. The above graph shows the rate of annual citizenship applications granted by Spain (in green) compared to Italy (in pink). Source: Eurostat The overall comparison shows that, between 2014 and 2023, Italy ranked first in the EU for citizenship for five years out of ten, not 'every year,' as Salvini claims. Going further back, in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Italy granted citizenship at a much lower rate. And when we look at the numbers of new citizens via residency in each country as a percentage of the population, Italy drops further down the rankings. For example, in 2023 Italy granted citizenship to 3.6 foreign nationals per thousand residents, the fifth highest number behind Luxembourg, Sweden, Spain and Belgium. If the referendum passes, estimates suggest some 1.4 million people would be immediately eligible to apply for citizenship. However, the rules on eligibility would otherwise remain unchanged, meaning this would be unlikely to increase the number of applicants in the long term. And Italy is already set to see a sharp decline in the total number of applications for citizenship filed and granted in future. By far the largest proportion of all new Italian citizenship applications are made via ancestry, often by descendants of Italians who moved abroad several generations ago. But at the end of March 2023, the number of people eligible to apply via ancestry was slashed dramatically in reforms pushed through by the government.
