A month out, Milano Cortina 2026 is shaping up to be a muted Olympics

Chris Jones reports from Italy ahead of the Milano Cortina Olympics.

The singing never stopped at San Siro on Sunday night, not until long after Inter Milan had dismantled Bologna, and the joyous home supporters had expressed their appreciation enough.

Olympic organizers must be hoping for a similarly enthusiastic chorus when the same stadium hosts the Opening Ceremony on Feb. 6.

Whether this soccer capital — Inter and AC Milan are the city’s undisputed sporting giants — will find its appetite for hockey and figure skating remains a worrisome question.

A month out, Milano Cortina 2026 is shaping up to be a muted Olympics. With venues spread across four different clusters in northern Italy and slow ticket sales among locals, it’s all feeling a little thin.

In Milan, for the moment, the Olympics are close to invisible, except for the unkind attention brought by the Milano Santagiulia hockey arena, still under obvious construction.

A temporary store in the city’s famed Piazza del Duomo is the only other reminder of glories to come, but the thousands of weekend visitors to the square were more taken with the towering Christmas tree still occupying it.

The city’s other venues are makeshift and far afield. Figure skating and long track speed skating will be held in Assago, to the south. A second, smaller hockey rink and short track speed skating will be housed at Fiera Milano, a sprawling collection of exhibit halls in Rho, far to the west.

The entire complex, which looks more like an enormous import-export operation, was locked up and silent on Sunday, unless a train streaked past.

Apart from the Milano Santagiulia, the only purpose-built site in the city is its athletes’ village, one of six dotting northern Italy.