Cortina’s new bobsled track for the 2026 Games that infuriates environmentalists

“All our venues already exist” stated the candidacy dossier for the Milan-Cortina Olympics in January 2019, presenting the 14 Olympic sites divided into four clusters, Milan, Valtellina, Cortina and Val di Fiemme. The same goes for the sliding center, i.e. the facility for the bobsled, skeleton and luge track, disciplines for which the restructuring of the “Eugenio Monti” track in Cortina was declared sufficient: built in 1928, after being modified, it was used for the 1956 Olympics. In 2007 the Ampezzo town was excluded from the Skeleton World Cup Circuit, so in 2008 the municipal administration decided to close it definitively due to excessive management costs.

However, the historic track immediately showed its age during the inspections in view of the 2026 Olympics. In fact, it became clear that the redevelopment works would not have been enough to make it compliant with international safety standards, but that the complete reconstruction of the track was needed. Many of the curves that made it famous will have to be widened and softened to slow down the stroke of the bobsleds and above all of the sledges and skeletons, a specialty in which the athletes’ bodies are stressed by considerable acceleration. Therefore, the structure must be demolished, disposed of and after having reclaimed the area, it must be completely rebuilt. In 25 months. A complicated story that of the Cortina bobsleigh track which is reaching its crucial moment. In fact, on 18 January the Services Conference was convened in the Ampezzo capital and a decision will have to be made there: whether or not to approve the project and start the tenders. It really is the last chapter and blocking construction sites seems unlikely. The plan for the construction of the runway is in fact filed in the Veneto Region dossier as “not postponeable”, i.e. that “it cannot be omitted”.

The work, for which an allocation of 85 million euros has already been foreseen (in addition to the track, the grandstands and a bridge over the Boite stream necessary for the passage of emergency vehicles have to be reconstructed) is strongly desired both by the Milan- Cortina and by the Veneto Region and the Municipality. But it is opposed by a group of citizens and guests of Cortina, about 2,000 people, who have formed a committee and have already presented appeals to the TAR. Another committee initiative called “Let’s Save the Country”, an initiative of the members of the Cortina tennis club, has also arisen. In fact, it is not known what will remain of the three fields that find themselves surrounded by the last curve of the track, right at the finish line. In the project they must give way to grandstands and space for TVs. A flyer “Let’s not get asphalted” was distributed to all club members. They will be there on January 18th too. Environmental associations have lined up alongside the committees, including Italia Nostra and Legambiente, who consider that the investment “goes in the opposite direction to circularity, precisely in a territory, that of the mountains, where the impact of climate change is visible “.

Roberta De Zan is the municipal councilor of “Cortina Bene Comune”. Here she was born and works there and she is not against the opening of construction sites, but always respecting the sustainability of these places, without disfiguring the environment which she considers one of the great values ​​of her country. Ever since we talk about the Olympics, about building new variants and ski lifts along the valley, ring roads, kilometer-long tunnels and now the bobsleigh track that would make part of the forest disappear, he has always been going around with the project and construction site files in his bag . She studies them continuously and has come to the conclusion that “the bobsleigh track for which part of the beautiful Ronco wood will have to be sacrificed will be used for a few days and will be abandoned due to the huge running costs. If it is built, it will be an environmental and economic disaster “. The councilor explains: “We have seen what happened in 2021 in Cortina for the Ski World Cup: 21 hectares of forest cost to widen roads, slopes and parking lots, rocks demolished with explosives. Now we start again with the idea of ​​rebuilding the bobsleigh track whose costs have soared and which would remain unused after the Olympics. I don’t want to underline that in Cortina we don’t even have a public swimming pool, but as the experience of Turin has shown, bobsleigh is not a widespread sport in Italy. Even the national team is made up of less than 20 athletes and in the Federation there are 37 members between bobsleigh, luge and skeleton, both male and female. I doubt that a structure from scratch would favor the development of this discipline. Not only that, why build another one , when could the races take place in nearby Innsbruck?”

Sport

The Olympic Games and the path to sustainability

by Luca Fraioli

May 19, 2022

The hypothesis of finding an agreement for the rental of the bobsled track with the Austrian government was actually also suggested by the Olympic Committee. As Legambiente writes in the “Nevediversa” dossier: “Not only the environmentalists, but also the IOC had suggested the use of the nearby track in Innsbruck. The Veneto Region and Coni, however, did not want to hear about it”. The IOC had made this suggestion because the bobsleigh tracks “involve a lot of investment with a subsequent annual deficit of between 470,000 and 670,000 euros per year”, Legambiente writes again.

The Turin case

The Pariol bobsleigh track, which cost 110 million euros in 2006, and the ice stadium in Pragelato were the main strengths of the candidacy dossier presented by Turin for the 2026 games twenty years after the 2006 Olympics. Also in that case the environmental associations opposed proposing to move the bobsleigh and luge races to La Plagne, 90 kilometers from the Susa valley, which is still functioning. Legambiente reconstructed the story as follows: “The facility had to be built on Italian territory because, according to Coni, Italy could not fail to have a bobsled and luge facility. Also considering that the one in Cortina would be closed shortly”. As then happened two years later. The track in Turin remained open for six years, hosting only two important international events after the Olympics: the bobsleigh World Cup in 2009 and the Luge World Cup in 2011. It was definitively closed in 2012.

Looking at what has happened in Piedmont in recent years, in Veneto the associations have made an appointment in Cortina for 18 January: to say “no” to the extraordinary commissioner for infrastructures of the Milan-Cortina 2026 Olympics Luigi Valerio Sant’Andrea. Among the promoters Cristina Guarda, regional councilor of Green Europe: “We still ask to block the Cortina project, let us not go back in time. Let us remember that Unesco has recognized the Dolomites as a world heritage. And right here on 24 January 2016 it was signed the Charter of Cortina. Theme? The sustainability of winter sports”.