- Italy’s 2026 Olympics were called the “Widespread Games.”
- Polling shows Italians backed far-flung venues.
- Milan now considered a tri-city Summer Games bid.
Italians really got behind the 2026 Winter Games, which was officially hosted by Milan and Cortina but actually spread across much of northern Italy, new polling shows.
More than three-quarters, 77%, say hosting the Olympics, and the Paralympics that follow for athletes with disabilities, helped improve Italy’s image internationally, according to a translated report by Francs Jeux, a French-language Olympic news site.
And 79% of Italians polled by the Piepoli Institute, in collaboration with the consulting firm WePlan, back the new, less traditional model for hosting, dubbed by Olympic organizers the “Widespread Games.”
The 2026 Games were the first awarded to a pair of cities, the fashion capital of Milan and the mountain ski resort community of Cortina several hundred miles away. But venues were located in other places, too, requiring a total of six separate athlete villages.
Italians saw that as “a wise decision, despite the criticisms regarding travel times,” according to Francs Jeux, with 77% agreeing that utilizing the far-flung venues “contributed to the quality of the competitions.”
The sprawl in Italy was the result of the International Olympic Committee’s efforts to reduce the costs as well as the impacts of a Games by involving multiple cities, regions and even countries to limit the need for new venues to be built.
Will Winter Games in France, Utah also be ‘widespread’?
At the next Winter Games, in the French Alps in 2030, organizers are preparing to hold long-track speedskating events at an existing oval in the Netherlands, more than 1,000 miles away. Within France, venues will stretch from the northern mountains to the southern coast.
In contrast, Utah’s 2034 Winter Games are set to have a single athletes village at the University of Utah that’s within an hour of any venue, just like when Salt Lake City hosted the 2002 Winter Games.
There is already talk in Italy of bidding to host a Summer Games in 2036 or 2040. Among the places expressing interest are a trio of cities, Milan, Torino and Genoa. Torino was the site of the 2006 Winter Games.
The tri-city bid may be competing against Rome and other places in Italy, but Francs Jeux said the poll offered some encouragement, with 79% of Italians believing the new model on display for this year’s Winter Games “could be replicated in the future to host other major events.”
The field is already crowded, with formal 2036 bid campaigns in place for Doha, Qatar; Ahmedabad, India; and North Jeolla, South Korea; according to GamesBids.com. Germany, Chile, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Egypt, Turkey, Hungary and Spain are also considering bids.