Well before Sunday’s closing ceremony at the Roman amphitheatre in Verona, itself a 2,000-year-old statement of longevity, something about the 2026 Winter Olympics felt different. In the end the Games left many lasting statements of triumph too.
From the outset they promised to go where no Winter Olympics had gone before – or over 22,000 sq km of northern Italy, to be exact. The spread of four different venue clusters under the umbrella of Milano Cortina, including the peaks of Livigno at the Swiss border and The Stelvio Ski Centre in Bormio, opened a new dimension for all involved.
Only instead of expanding the Olympic footprint, this was all about shrinking it, maximising the use of existing venues just like the 2024 Paris Olympics did so successfully. Although creating some geographical challenges for competitors and spectators, the overriding sense is that it all worked a sporting treat.
The four Irish athletes who qualified made for our smallest representation since the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, where the team also numbered four. Competing across 10 different events, none of them were there just to make up the numbers, and as it turned out, Ben Lynch saved the best Irish result until last when finishing eighth in Friday’s fr
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