$50 million US roof approved for 2026 Winter Olympics to cover speed skating venue
City of Baselga di Pine gives go-ahead to appease International Skating Union
Another expensive venue for the 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics has been approved, with $50 million US project slated to place a roof over the outdoor speedkating oval in Baselga di Pine.
Officials in the Trentino region gave the go-ahead at a city council meeting.
The Milan-Cortina organizing committee said Tuesday that it couldn't comment on "a choice made by Baselga," but noted that speed skating was slated for Baselga in the bid dossier and that the International Skating Union prefers an indoor oval.
Neither the oval nor the sliding centre will be included in official Milan-Cortina budgets in an era of increasing sensitivity about the cost of staging the Olympics — and the typical overspending funded by taxpayers.
There had been calls to move speed skating to an existing indoor oval built for the 2006 Turin Games.
The move comes amid reports that the new Italian government is set to appoint Andrea Varnier, who helped organize the 2006 Turin Games, as the chief executive for the 2026 organizing committee.
Alessandro Zoppini, the architect for the approved oval, also designed the speed skating venues for the 2006, 2014 and 2018 Games in Turin, Sochi and Pyeongchang, respectively.
Zoppini noted that covering the oval will reduce energy costs since the track will no longer be subjected to direct sunshine.
The Baselga oval hosted the 1995 world championships and various other elite events but the last time speed skating was held outdoors at the Olympics was for the 1992 Albertville Games, with the IOC having since preferred the controlled environment of indoor venues.
Outdoor ice is notoriously tough to keep in shape for all competitors to have a fair chance at a medal.
High temperatures made matters challenging in Albertville, where one recurring term was "slush," with skaters ploughing through soft ice that sometimes had a thin sheet of water on top.
Over longer distances, when a competition session can take two hours, conditions at outdoor tracks can change to the extent that gold can depend as much on the starting time as on four years of preparation.
With Baselga now slated to get a roof, though, those worries can be set aside.
