Imminent resumption of work on the Sliding Center – Sport & Society

2024-02-03 12:21:40

In view of the 2026 Winter Games, the redevelopment work on the historic track Eugenio Monti in Cortina d’Ampezzo should resume during the second half of February, following the signing of the contract between the Società Infrastrutture Milano Cortina 2026 SpA (SIMICO) and the construction and civil engineering company Pizzarotti.

Visual of part of the project for the new Cortina d’Ampezzo Sliding Center, Italy (Credits – SIMICO)

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Visual of part of the project for the new Sliding Center in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy (Credits – Infrastrutture Milano Cortina 2026 SpA)

LThe countdown is on.

Two years before the opening of the next edition of the Winter Games, on February 6, 2026, the construction site future ski center is preparing to resume in Cortina d’Ampezzo where there has been no shortage of controversies in recent months, in light of a project singled out for its cost and for the supposed lack of viability in terms of inheritance . Criticisms leveled just as much by local associations as by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the latter having even repeatedly campaigned in favor of a relocation outside Italy of the bobsleigh, luge and skeleton events.

For the Italian government and for the organizers of the Games, the announced resumption of work inevitably constitutes a victory which comes to dedicate a national project resolutely designed to benefit the entire peninsula.

As stated in a joint press release by the Minister of Infrastructure and Transport, Matteo Salvini, and the Minister of Youth and Sports, Andrea Abodi:

This choice [de maintenir le projet à Cortina] finalizes the file and shows the extreme determination of this government to conclude all the work for the Games, as best as possible and in Italy.

However, the deadlines are currently particularly tight to implement the Sliding Center project at 81.6 million euros (excluding taxes) which must be located at the location of the current track. Eugenio Monti.

To meet this major challenge, knowing that the completion of the technical elements must be achieved by March 2025 at the latest to allow the establishment of various tests, the construction and civil engineering company Pizzarotti should be in action on the ground starting February 19, 2024.

Proof of the importance of this project in view of the calendar constraints imposed by the prospect of the Games, the company – which was the only one to respond to the call for tenders relaunched at the end of 2023 by SIMICO after a first unsuccessful call in the middle of last summer – has surrounded itself with 90 Norwegian workers and engineers specializing in winter sports infrastructures who will reinforce the contingent of its teams mobilized in Cortina d’Ampezzo.

View of the controlled demolition works of the historic Eugenio Monti track in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy, Tuesday February 28, 2023 (Credits – Infrastrutture Milano Cortina 2026 SpA)

If by chance the site were to encounter difficulties making it impossible to complete the work on time, the Italian authorities could, however, be forced to re-examine the alternative solution put forward by the IOCnamely the integration of an existing and already operational track across borders, in Austriain Swiss, even in the United States.

Such a decision would nevertheless be seen as a snub for the government and the organizers of the 2026 Olympics who have in any case inflicted – at this stage – a serious setback on the Olympic institution.

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