MILAN: Thomas Bach said Italy is ready to host next year’s Winter Olympics as the one-year countdown to the sprawling Milan-Cortina Games began at an event on Thursday.

International Olympic Committee chief Bach asked representatives from Italy and five other national committees to join him on stage at Milan’s Strehler Theatre to receive invitations to the 2026 Olympics, which will be his last as arguably the most powerful person in global sport.

“Italy is ready to write the next chapter of its great Olympic history,” said Bach during the ceremony for the 25th Winter Olympics.

Bach later insisted that the much-contested bobsleigh track for the Games in Cortina d’Ampezzo, on which construction work only began a year ago, will be completed in time for an approval deadline next month. Asked if all venues would be ready on schedule, Bach simply said “yes”, and was equally monosyllabic on whether there were any chance the sliding events could be moved to the back-up venue of Lake Placid, some 6,000 kilometres (3,728 miles) away in the USA.

“No,” said 71-year-old Bach, who also praised the head of Italy’s hard-right government Giorgia Meloni for her “great leadership” after meeting with her in Rome on Wednesday.

Bach will step down as IOC chief in June after 12 years in charge, with a gaggle of contenders vying to replace the German.

Published in Dawn, February 7th, 2025