Milano-Cortina 2026: the Eugenio Monti bobsleigh track inaugurated.

The new Eugenio Monti bobsleigh track has been inaugurated in Cortina, a work that will become a symbol of the Olympic and Paralympic Games Milano-Cortina 2026. Celebrating its opening was the President of the Veneto Region Luca Zaia.

Milano-Cortina 2026: Cortina opens its bobsleigh track. Zaia: “Challenge won, it's a piece of history”

Cortina d'Ampezzo returns to the forefront of world winter sports with the inauguration of the new Eugenio Monti bobsleigh track, a symbolic work of the Olympic and Paralympic Games Milano-Cortina 2026. Celebrating its opening was the President of the Veneto Region Luca Zaia, who defined the structure as follows: "We won the challenge and created a piece of history, recovering an abandoned area and track that had been reduced to a sort of landfill. The new Eugenio Monti will not only be the most iconic track from a sporting point of view with bobsleigh, skeleton and luge. Let's define it a bit like our Guggenheim Museum, because here people will come to see a unique work from an architectural and engineering point of view".

A rebirth for Cortina and for Italy

The new Eugene Monti will be the beating heart of bobsleigh, skeleton and luge competitions, with an estimated media impact of over 3 billion viewers around the world. A grand return for the oldest track in the world, which had remained unused for years. The project also had a positive environmental impact: over 10.000 trees planted, reclamation of the mountain slope and redevelopment of the entire area.

"Up here we have shown that will and determination lead to results: a project worth almost 120 billion completed in one year, responding with facts to those who said that in Italy projects cannot be done. Above all, we have reclaimed a devastated mountainside, a real open-air landfill, even with the replanting of ten thousand trees. At the time I defined all this 'a monument to madness' because the whole dossier was born from an idea of ​​mine and in that dossier I wanted to include the bobsleigh track, given that it is the oldest track in the world that was sadly abandoned. For me it is a great satisfaction, I do not deny it. I started with an idea in the face of a lot of skeptics who said it would be a fiasco and that it was a mockery for the citizens. Instead, hundreds of thousands will come to Cortina and we will be seen on the various media channels by at least 3 billion people. Not to mention that we have also put the opening and closing of the Paralympics and the Closing of the Olympics on the table at the Verona Arena, which will also undergo a major restoration. In Cortina, however, we have created a work that restores dignity and standing to the Queen of the Dolomites, while there were those who, for the bobsleigh, thought of making us travel around half of Europe. I also remember that the IOC said that this will be the last bobsleigh track built in the world, “. The Venetian governor said proudly.

Olympics and public works: a boost for the economy

Not just sports: the project Milano-Cortina 2026 also translates into a massive infrastructure investment plan, for a total value of 1,8 billion euros in works public funtains. According to a study by Bank Ifis, the estimated economic return is 5,3 billion, with a direct impact on GDP of approximately 1,5 percentage points. Cortina thus becomes a symbol of the Italian desire to transform sporting events into opportunities for structural growth. “Without the Olympics, we would never have seen these works, not even in our dreams,” concluded Zaia.