Translated by Aurora Forlivesi
The 25th Winter Olympic Games will begin on 6 February and will be held in Italy, jointly in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo (in the Veneto region), running until 22 February. The host city was selected in 2019, when the Milano–Cortina bid was chosen as the winner by the IOC (International Olympic Committee), beating the Stockholm–Åre (Sweden) candidacy. Switzerland and Canada, among the bidding countries, withdrew following pressure from civil society, which had said “no” to hosting the Games through referendums.
For the first time in Olympic history, the competitions will be held in more than one city, in a “distributed” format across several areas. In Milan, the opening and closing ceremonies will take place at San Siro Stadium, along with ice hockey and figure skating events. Cortina will host sliding sports, curling, biathlon and women’s ski mountaineering. Several alpine skiing disciplines and snowboarding will take place in Valtellina, while Val di Fiemme will host ski jumping and cross-country skiing. In addition, for the first time there will be two Olympic cauldrons: one in Milan, at the Arco della Pace, and one in Cortina.
The Games have been at the centre of public debate not only because of their historical and cultural significance—celebrated with great enthusiasm during the widely attended stages of the Olympic torch relay—but also because of a wide range of critical issues. These concerns had already led, several years ago, to the creation of a grassroots protest group, the Insustainable Olympics Committee (Comitato Insostenibili Olimpiadi). On 30 January, the committee held a public assembly at the University of Milan to discuss and provide updates on the week of protest mobilisations, long announced and scheduled to take place between 5 and 8 February. The programme includes protest marches as well as symbolically alternative activities, such as the “people’s sport day” on the 8th.
A first major criticism concerns costs. According to the Open Olympics 2026 report by the NGO LIBERA, spending has exceeded €5 billion for what were initially presented as “zero-cost Olympics” and had originally been launched with a much lower budget. The preparation plan for the host cities included 98 projects, ranging from the construction of sports facilities to major infrastructure works, such as roads and railways to ensure access to competition venues. However, many of these projects are still unfinished, their completion timelines remain uncertain, and it is unclear how they will be used once the Games are over.
In Milan, both new constructions—such as the Santa Giulia Ice Hockey Arena—and upgrades to existing facilities have been carried out. This is the case of the Assago Forum, which will host figure skating events and where renovation works have improved parking areas and traffic flows to ensure greater safety. The project envisages that these venues will remain in use and become a social asset for the city of Milan. The same applies to the Olympic Village built in the Porta Romana district: designed to host 1,700 athletes, it is intended to be converted after the Games into a large student housing complex with regulated, below-market rents, in response to Milan’s serious housing affordability problems. However, criticism remains over the expected rental prices, which are still considered high.
The costs are not only economic—they are above all environmental. In 2020, in response to criticism over the negative impacts of the Olympics on local populations, the environment, and public funds, the Olympic Committee adopted the Agenda 2020, setting out guidelines to make the Games more sustainable by encouraging the reuse of existing infrastructure and long-term urban planning for new constructions. However, the results have fallen short of expectations.
The problems involve not only the inevitable emissions from construction sites, but also the water and energy demands for maintaining the slopes, artificial snow systems, and the deforestation carried out to create storage basins and roads. Cortina had previously hosted the Olympic Games in 1956, but most of the facilities had been closed over the years due to the difficulty and cost of keeping them operational, leaving them to rust without maintenance. A striking example is the bobsleigh track, which was in such poor condition that a new one was built—an operation cheaper than restoring the old track, but clearly not in line with the guidelines of Agenda 2020, especially because the Games inevitably lead to higher prices and living costs in the host areas, as well as intensified tourism in regions already pressured—like Cortina—by a strong focus on tourist services at the expense of local well-being.
Another major criticism concerns security management. In Milan, five “red zones” have been established, in effect from 2 to 22 February, around sports venues and along official routes considered sensitive. These are areas where individuals reported to judicial authorities for certain offenses are prohibited from being present. On the part of civil society, these zones are perceived as a pretext to “clean up” the city of marginalized people, effectively turning public spaces into “areas of reduced sovereignty.”
Still on the topic of security, a highly debated issue that has dominated public discussion arose from poor communication by the government. Recently, strong alarm was caused by the news that the U.S. agency ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement)—the federal agency responsible for customs and immigration enforcement—would be present among the security forces for the Olympics. Given recent news from the United States, particularly from Minneapolis, regarding persistent violence and, in the tragic case of Renee Nicole Good, a killing carried out by ICE agents, the idea that these same personnel would be entrusted with security in Italy caused widespread concern and raised questions about the independence of Italian sovereignty. The case of the killing of Alex Pretti, another U.S. citizen killed in Minneapolis by federal agents, was linked to that of Good, and the idea spread that ICE was responsible in both cases. In reality, however, the agents responsible for Pretti’s death belonged to the U.S. Border Patrol, another federal agency dealing with immigration, which, like ICE, falls under the Department of Homeland Security.
However, this is not the real situation, and the matter was only clarified several days after the first news report on 24 January by Il Fatto Quotidiano, which had been informed by an anonymous U.S. source. At first, the Minister of the Interior, Piantedosi, said he knew nothing about it; then, via ANSA, the President of the Lombardy Region, Fontana, appeared to confirm the presence of ICE; at that point, the Mayor of Milan issued a statement opposing the presence of the American forces. The issue also triggered parliamentary questions from the Alleanza Verdi–Sinistra and Azione.
The truth only emerged with the direct intervention of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, followed by confirmation from the U.S. ambassador to Italy, who clarified the situation: the unit present in Italy to collaborate, alongside the State Department, on security during the Olympics will be the investigative branch of ICE, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI)—intelligence bodies that investigate transnational crimes. Its role will, however, be limited to the protection of the U.S. contingent, both sporting and political—including Vice President J. D. Vance and Secretary of State Rubio. Therefore, the American agents will not operate as police on Italian territory. The presence of HSI in Italy is not new nor unique: the agency operates in ninety countries, with offices worldwide, including Rome.
It is true that on 27 January, the streets of Milan saw a “parade” of SUVs with Qatari license plates, even though the country has no athletes at the Olympics. Their presence is due to a cooperation agreement between Italy and Qatar, which “provides for the contribution of Qatari security forces to support public order,” as signed by the Minister of the Interior during his visit to Qatar in 2025. The decision is highly controversial because the country faces numerous accusations of human rights violations, violence, and abuse, particularly against the LGBTQIA+ community.
Criticism also persists regarding the presence of Israeli athletes, which many consider incomprehensible—similar to controversies in the past two years during various public events, such as the Eurovision Song Contest—given the ongoing human rights violations and the multiple war crimes of which the Israeli state is accused. The IOC has maintained that Israeli athletes have full rights to participate and to march with their flag and anthem (unlike Russian and Belarusian athletes, who will compete as Neutral Individual Athletes). The participation of these athletes could also entail the presence of Israeli intelligence agents, namely the Mossad.
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