With Beijing Games coming to a close, Italy looks ahead to Milano Cortina 2026

The last time the Olympic Winter Games were held in Italy in 2006, Canada's Brad Gushue was celebrating gold at the Pinerolo Palaghiaccio arena in Turin.

While the St. John's native was busy continuing Canada's dominance in the sport, 500 kilometres to the east in the mountain town of Cortina d'Ampezzo, then six-year-old Stefania Constantini hadn't even been introduced to the sport.

Sixteen years later in Beijing she would win the gold in mixed doubles curling, the first ever medal for Italy in the sport.

"The moment I started curling, a spark ignited," said 22-year-old Constantini to franoi.com in January about being introduced to the sport by a friend at eight years old. "I began to get more and more passionate, and slowly I began to let go of all other activities to be able to devote myself totally to this sport."

The path for Constantini in mixed doubles, alongside partner Amos Mosener, may lead her to the Stadio Olimpico del Ghiaccio in 2026, located in the very town she grew up in.

Almost reads like a fairytale.

WATCH | Italian curlers strike gold in Beijing:

And therein lies the trap that is so easy to fall into when projecting ahead for elite athletes. As promising as something may look — and it doesn't get any more promising than a gold medal to predict future outcomes — there are numerous variables at play that can throw a wrench into even the simplest prognostications.

Gushue, fresh off a gold, went 16 years before even getting a chance to compete on the biggest stage again, where he won bronze in men's curling in Beijing.

These unpredictable outcomes are something Anne Merklinger, CEO of Own the Podium, deals with every day, formulating projections years down the line, with varying levels of uncertainty heaped on the further out from an event they may be.

"When you move into the five-to-eight year part of the athlete pathway — which we would call NextGen athletes — the evidence is not as perhaps definitive as it is when you're talking about athletes that are four years away from a podium performance," said Merklinger to CBC Sports. "There's more variability, the further away you get.

"The pool of athletes tends to be a little bit broader. So it's about making sure that the sport has a robust enough athlete pathway to identify, recruit and develop those athletes that emerge with medal potential in the five-to-eight year time frame."

As the Beijing Games come to a close, the monumental achievement of an Italian victory on the ice becomes less about the golden moment itself, and more about being a signifier of success for future competitions, a data point to be considered for funding incentives.

"It's certainly important that we look at what sports have won medals at the Games, because it's an indicator that the sport has a good understanding of what's required to produce medal-winning high performance programs," said Merklinger.

On the surface, Italy's data points for medals at the Beijing Games certainly bode well for the country ramping up to host the next Winter Games.

The unexpected win in curling was one of 17 medals Italy has racked up thus far, placing them in a four-way tie for seventh at the Games. This paces them for their first top-10 finish since 2006, the last year they hosted the Games. The medal haul also marks the second most in Italian history at a Winter Olympic Games, trailing only the 1994 Games in Lillehammer, Norway.

However, when one delves deeper into the 20 athletes that secured at least one medal in Beijing, just four of them will be under the age of 30 in 2026: 24-year-old alpine skier Nadia Delago (bronze in the women's downhill), 22-year-old short track speed skater Pietro Sighel (silver in the mixed team relay and bronze in the men's 5000m relay), 21-year-old short track speed skater Luca Spechenhauser (bronze in the men's 5000m relay), and Constantini.

Legendary speed skater Arianna Fontana — whose three medals in Beijing made her the most decorated Italian Winter Olympian ever with 11 total — will be 35 in 2026, and has threatened to not take part in Milano Cortina 2026 if a dispute with the Italian skating federation is not resolved.

WATCH | Italy's most decorated Winter Olympian Arianna Fontana glides to gold:

This is not to say that Italy didn't flash some promising finishes by youngsters in Beijing. Nineteen-year-old figure skater Daniel Grassl finished seventh in the men's singles program, 22-year-old Simone Deromedis finished fifth in the men's ski cross, and 18-year-old Leonardo Donaggio placed fifth in the men's big air competition.

While one can try to project ahead regarding individual athletes to varying degrees of success, ultimately what matters most is having coaching and technical expertise in place.

"More often than not, we're looking to the sport to have a world-class technical leader, and at least one or more coaches that can support the development of athletes, and develop [a successful] pathway," said Merklinger, citing coaches John Herdman and Bev Priestman as a shining example of sustained success for the Canadian women's soccer program over the past decade.

Hosting an Olympics at home also presents a unique opportunity to influence athletics further down the line. China will get to track the benefits going forward after setting a national Winter Olympic record with nine gold medals and 15 total medals in Beijing, a feat they also pulled when hosting the 2008 Summer Games with 42 gold medals and 100 total medals. Italy will get to test that 20 years after Turin, and Canada may be lined up to do the same in 2030 in Vancouver.

"I firmly believe that [the 2010 Games] changed our nation," said Merklinger, who assumed CEO duties of Own the Podium in 2012, eight years after it was founded to prepare Canadian athletes to reach medal finishes in Vancouver. "Our performance in the 2010 games transformed us into a much prouder, more confident and united country. That was a key opportunity for Canada being the host nation.

This intangible mix of storytelling housed inside of the very tangible Olympic venues is one that only a hometown Games can create. Whether the story in 2026 is seeing a gold-medallist curler repeating in her hometown or sparking the interest of another girl to pick up a curling broom to realize her dream at an undefined period of time down the road remains to be seen.