The schedule for finishing the world that shall be used for a lot of hockey video games on the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy shall be “very tight,” organizers instructed the Worldwide Olympic Committee (IOC) this week on the group’s 144th Session in Greece.
The Santagiulia Ice Hockey Area in Milan, which is slated to have the ability to host 16,000 followers, will host many males’s hockey video games and the semifinal and closing video games in ladies’s hockey. It’s going to even be dwelling to Para hockey in the course of the Paralympics.
But when issues go to schedule, organizers will not have the ability to get into the ability to begin constructing the non permanent ice the gamers will use till October, 4 months earlier than the Video games are set to start.
The world is being developed by a non-public firm. After the Video games, the ice shall be eliminated and it’ll host different sports activities.
“We have been following by way of the processes for the reason that very starting,” Andrea Varnier, the CEO of Milano Cortina 2026, mentioned after his presentation to IOC members on Thursday.
Varnier blamed the pandemic for a “gradual begin” that left non-public house owners questioning if the world can be an excellent funding, with out realizing what would possibly occur on the earth.
“We have been actually nervous at one level,” Varnier mentioned. “Lastly work began they usually’re going very, very quick.”
The pictures proven by the organizing committee throughout their presentation confirmed a skeleton of a construction.
Ice to be examined lower than 2 months earlier than Video games
The schedule would see the non permanent ice completed in December, lower than two months earlier than the Video games. Then, organizers will maintain check occasions to gauge its high quality.
Requested concerning the organizers’ backup plan ought to the Santagiulia Ice Hockey Area not be prepared in time, Varnier mentioned there is not one.
“We do not see a necessity for a backup plan as a result of like we mentioned, the work goes completely on-line with our timing,” Varnier mentioned. So we do not imagine, along with the worldwide federation, that we’d like a plan B.”
After the Olympics and Paralympics, the ice shall be eliminated and the ability can be utilized for different sports activities, resembling tennis, that are extra standard within the native space.
NHL gamers will return to the Olympics for the primary time since 2014. The primary tickets went on sale over two days in February.
Of greater than 600,000 tickets offered, hockey was one of the standard attracts, together with biathlon, determine skating and cross-country snowboarding.
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“It is apparent that it is a very big alternative for us, for Italy, for the video games for the Olympic motion however particularly for Milano Cortina 2026,” Giovanni Malagò, the president of the organizing committee, instructed reporters.
Requested concerning the high quality of the non permanent ice the gamers will use, Varnier mentioned there are nice examples of tournaments utilizing non permanent ice.
“We now have the data, the know-how and the expertise to make a incredible non permanent ice sheet for the NHL gamers to have a incredible [tournament],” he mentioned.
“We’re working with worldwide federations. This has by no means been a fear. After all way more difficult is the pace skating. That shall be non permanent as effectively.”
Sliding Centre set for testing
The Milan Ice Park will host the pace skating stadium and Rho Ice Hockey Area, which is able to play host to the boys’s and girls’s hockey video games that will not be on the new Santagiulia Ice Hockey Area.
Varnier instructed the IOC that everlasting work on the Ice Park is full. After the Video games, the venue shall be out there as a multifunctional house for the group. Like at Santagiulia, the ice is non permanent.
“On the identical time, we will show that it’s doable to prepare a fancy occasion resembling a pace skating competitors in a short lived and sustainable venue,” Varnier mentioned.
Subsequent week, 60 athletes are slated to check the sliding centre being in-built Cortina, a venue that had been the goal of sabotage final month. The backup plan, had the sliding centre not been accomplished, would see sliding occasions moved all the way in which to Lake Placid, N.Y.
The athletes’ village in Milan is sort of full, whereas the primary prefabricated homes began arriving in Cortina d’Ampezzo two weeks in the past, organizers mentioned.
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