'We will be ready', say Winter Games organizers

ROME — Six months before the start of the Winter Olympics, Italian organizers say that, after years of ups and downs, they are on schedule.

"Preparations are progressing steadily, and according to the timeline we have set," Andrea Varnier, the chief executive officer of the Milano-Cortina 2026 Olympic and Paralympic Organizing Committee, told reporters.

The Olympic opening ceremony is on Feb 6, though curling kicks off the action two days before that. The Paralympics open a month later on March 6, with curling again breaking the ice two days earlier.

"We are currently in the core phase of operational implementation," said Varnier.

Simico, the public company responsible for delivering the Olympic facilities, last week promised that "all the planned sports construction projects will be completed before the start of the Olympics".

Organizers have made a point of delivering a low-cost Winter Games after the extravagance of recent Games.

Sochi, in Russia in 2014, cost at least $40 billion. Pyeongchang, in South Korea in 2018, came in at over $12 billion. The COVID-hit Games in Beijing in 2022 officially cost $2.24 billion in total organizational expenditure, according to the Beijing 2022 organizing committee's financial report released in May 2023.

Milano-Cortina is estimating its final bill will be $6 billion. Of that, $4 billion is going toward infrastructure, with the remaining $2 billion on staging the Games.

The Games are using a host of existing venues — emphasizing the point by holding the closing ceremony in the almost 2,000-year-old Roman amphitheater in Verona. Organizers say that avoiding new construction reduces not only costs, but environmental impact.