Transport strike affecting Olympic test event underscores risks facing Milan-Cortina Games

A transport strike during an official test event for the Milan-Cortina Olympics highlighted why organizers are negotiating with trade unions to avoid a similar scenario during next year’s Winter Games.

When workers for Azienda Trasporti Milanesi (ATM) walked off their jobs last Friday, Milan’s metro, bus and tram system ground to a halt, leaving organizers of a short-track speedskating event having to call in emergency buses to transport schoolchildren to the arena in Assago on Milan’s outskirts that will also host the sport during the Olympics.

“It was interesting to have a test like that and have to come up with an emergency plan,” Milan-Cortina CEO Andrea Varnier told The Associated Press on Tuesday at a Foreign Press Association presentation. “But we’re hoping that there’s good will between everyone involved during the games so that there are no strikes.”

Strikes by Italy’s trade unions regularly cripple transport in the country — often affecting rail and air travel, too. And with six different venue clusters spread over an area of more than 22,000 square kilometres (nearly 10,000 square miles) across a wide swath of northern Italy, public transport will be the glue that holds the Milan-Cortina Games together.

“It’s essential for making our games work, so it’s fundamental that the transport system really works,” Varnier said.

In recent months, thousands of teachers, health care workers, trash collectors and others have walked off their jobs across Italy on Fridays to protest a decline in spending power, persistently low salaries and government policies they say have weakened public services.

Strikes and protests have also disrupted recent editions of Milan Fashion Week, snarling traffic and transfers between venues.

Strikes are generally called on Fridays, and the opening ceremony at the San Siro in Milan is scheduled for a Friday — Feb. 6, 2026. There are also two more Fridays of competition days before the games close on Feb. 22, 2026.

“We are in discussions with the labor minister and negotiating with all of the unions and public entities so as to avoid strikes during the Olympics,” Varnier said.

The IOC will have a new leader for the next Olympics

The 2026 Games will be the first Winter Games to fully embrace cost-cutting reforms installed by International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach and use mostly existing venues.

It will also be the first Olympics for a new IOC president, with seven candidates running in an election to be held next month in Greece. The chosen candidate will take over from Bach in June.

“We have a great relationship with president Bach and we are sure that we will have a great relationship with whoever is elected, because ours will mark the first games where the new president will appear before a big international audience,” Varnier said. “It’s going to be an intense period between the inauguration and our games.”

Another leadership change could involve Milan-Cortina president Giovanni Malagò, who is also president of the Italian Olympic Committee (CONI) and an IOC member.

Malagò’s third and final four-year term as CONI president ends in May and there is a debate among Italian politicians whether or not to grant him an exceptional extra year in the role until after the Milan-Cortina Olympics and Paralympics.

Either way, Malagò will remain the president of the Milan-Cortina organizing committee. But a new CONI president would be guaranteed a seat on the Milan-Cortina executive board.

“The debate takes away a bit of the focus from the games and we would prefer that it’s taken care of afterward,” Varnier said. “Changing the executive board in the middle of things is never great. So we would prefer continuity, because the current board is working well.”

Organizers sold 300,000 tickets in the opening 6 days

With a total of 1.5 million tickets available for the games, 300,000 were sold in the first six days of sales this month. An average of seven tickets were sold to every user on the platform for pre-registered applicants.

Open ticket sales, which don’t require pre-registration, will start in April.

More than half of the tickets cost less than 100 euros ($105).

Construction on controversial sliding center in Cortina moving along

The controversial sliding center in Cortina is taking shape, meaning that organizers believe they are near to casting aside the Plan B in Lake Placid, New York.

The IOC has set a deadline for the end of March for pre-certification of the track, construction of which is being overseen and fast-tracked by the Italian government.

“We still need to pass the pre-certification but it should be a done deal over the next two months,” Varnier said.

So is the organizing committee preparing to celebrate IOC approval?

“Yes,” Varnier said. “Although right now we’re making plans as if the track were already ready.”

Environmental groups have protested the number of trees cut down to rebuild the century-old Cortina track, which had been closed since 2008.

Sports Minister Andrea Abodi noted that a new track’s power plant will also provide energy for Cortina’s ice arena, which will host curling during the Olympics.

“The old abandoned cement track was the real problem in terms of sustainability,” Malagò said. “I’ll dare to say that if it weren’t for the Olympics, that hunk of cement would have remained there for 200 years.”

The Cortina track will also be used for the 2028 Winter Youth Olympics recently assigned to many of the same venues for 2026.

___

AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/winter-olympics