It’s looking like Italy’s controversial new bobsled, luge and skeleton track will be ready for the 2026 Winter Games, so a backup plan to hold Olympic competitions in Lake Placid, New York, may no longer be needed.
A delegation of international experts, including the retired manager of the Lake Placid sliding track used for the 1980 Winter Games who’s known as “The Bobfather,” are currently in Italy to assess the progress made on what’s become a nearly $128 million project.
“I was shocked,” the Lake Placid expert, Tony Carlino, told the Adirondack Explorer about how much work has been completed in the past 13 months. With track in Cortina now about 98% complete, he said “there are a few things to do, nothing earth shattering.”
Carlino, an Olympic bobsledder who worked for the New York State Olympic Regional Development Authority for 19 years, declared the Italian track in Cortina " is going to be fabulous when the time comes."
Testing of the new Italian track is set to continue through the weekend.
Earlier this year, the CEO of next year’s Milan-Cortina Games, Andrea Varnier, told the Deseret News organizers were “very confident” after touring the track site that the Lake Placid option wouldn’t be needed because of the “amazing” amount of work that had been done.
The Italian government’s Olympic construction arm, Simico, posted online Monday that completion of the 1,730-meter track being built on the site of sliding venue for the 1956 Winter Games is scheduled for November.
Italy forged ahead with the project, despite pressure from the International Olympic Committee to use an existing European track in Switzerland or Austria. But because work on the track was slow to start, the IOC insisted Milan-Cortina organizers come up with a “Plan B.”
That’s where Lake Placid, which has aspirations of hosting another Olympics, came in. Nearly two years ago, sliding tracks around the world were invited to bid on holding the bobsled, luge and skeleton events for the 2026 Winter Games.
The only other U.S. Olympic sliding track, built for the 2002 Winter Games at the Utah Olympic Park near Park City, chose not to participate because the state was focused on getting the 2034 Winter Games that were awarded by the IOC in July 2024.