The upcoming Olympic Winter Games™ (6-22 February 2026) and Paralympic Winter Games™ (6-15 March 2026) will be spread across Milan, Cortina d’Ampezzo and the Alpine landscape of northern Italy (“Milan Cortina” or the “Winter Games”). Over 3,500 athletes from 93 countries will compete for 195 medals across 16 Olympic disciplines and six Paralympic sports.
It is the first Olympiad under the stewardship of new IOC President Kirsty Coventry, who has openly acknowledged the “added additional complexities“ of organising and delivering a Games across an area spanning 22,000 km². Aside from the logistics of hosting a multi-sport international event of this magnitude, the IOC, Fondazione Milano Cortina 2026 (the Organising Committee for the Winter Games) and competing International Federations must contend with the geo-political climate, environmental pressures and integrity issues associated with elite-level competition.
In this article, I examine some of the legal talking points and challenges in the lead up to the Winter Games, as well as some of the flashpoints that could arise once the competition gets underway in earnest.