This year’s Winter Games in Italy are being hailed by the International Olympic Committee as proof that hosting duties can be spread out.
The 2026 Winter Games were the first with two official hosts, Milan and Cortina, but included four separate competition clusters and six athlete villages that sprawled across two regions and two autonomous provinces.
“It showed that the Games can adapt to the host, rather than the host adapting to the Games. This is a fundamental shift — and one that broadens the feasibility of future Olympic Winter Games,” said Kristin Kloster of Norway.
Kloster, head of the IOC’s coordination commission for the Milan Cortina Games, said they “demonstrated that a distributed model — spread across multiple regions, venues and communities — is not only viable, but can deliver a successful edition.”
The commission’s final report, presented at the recent IOC session in Lausanne, Switzerland, highlighted the pluses produced by the new model, including that 85% of the competition venues used were existing or temporary, reducing the environmental impact.
Also seen as signaling success for the 2026 Games:
- 2.6 billion people worldwide followed via broadcast, streaming, digital and social media platforms
- More than $5.7 billion in economic impact generated for Italy
- Nearly 100 infrastructure projects accelerated, with more than $3.4 billion in public funding
- More than 2 million young people participated in an Olympic education program
Spelled out in the report is that the IOC had to move beyond the traditional model of a single host city in order to ensure there would continue to be enough interested bidders, especially for the Winter Games.
“The path to Milano Cortina 2026 was shaped by lessons from the bidding cycle for the Olympic Winter Games 2022, when several prospective hosts withdrew due to limited public and political support — largely linked to the perception of high hosting costs,” the report stated.
More than a decade ago, the IOC awarded the 2022 Winter Games to Beijing despite China’s lack of progress on human rights issues, after cities in Sweden, Poland, Norway and Ukraine dropped out of the running, leaving Almaty, Kazakhstan, as their only other choice.
The situation was seen as so unstable at the time that longtime backers of Salt Lake City’s bid for a second Winter Games expressed hopes that Utah’s capital might be asked to step up as a host despite U.S. Olympic officials then exclusively seeking a Summer Games.
It all “underscored the need for a more sustainable and adaptable hosting model,” the report said, leading to a new bidding process that permits multiple cities, regions and even countries to vie for a Games.
Utah participated in that bidding process, which was expanded during the IOC session, but still offered the same compact model for the 2034 Winter Games that was used when the state first hosted in 2002.
With existing venues located within an hour of the single athletes village at the University of Utah being reused, organizers say nothing permanent needs to be built. There are some temporary venues planned, including a big air jump in downtown Salt Lake City.
One big difference, though, is who is hosting the 2034 Winter Games. Back in 2002, the Winter Games were awarded to Salt Lake City. But this time around, Utah is the official host of the Winter Games, with state leaders playing a more prominent role.
The new “Utah 2034″ name was unveiled late last year, along with a logo that’s proved to be controversial due to an abstract design seen as hard to read. The logo is set to be revised or replaced in a few years, although the name will remain.