The Milan-Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games, which will be held from February 6 to 22, 2026, are fast approaching. Competitions will be spread across multiple locations in northern Italy, including urban Milan and the famous mountain destination of Cortina d’Ampezzo.
Among the competitors from all over the world, Bosnia and Herzegovina will be represented by five athletes: alpine skiers Elvedina Muzaferija, Marko Šljivić, Esma Alić, and Nordic skiers Strahinja Erić and Teodora Dalipara.
The best Bosnian luger, Mirza Nikolajev, will not participate in the Games in Italy, because the International Olympic Committee (IOC) decided to invite the Chinese Bao Zhenyu, who was seven places lower than Nikolajev, instead. The IOC did this so that the Chinese national team would have a team in the team competition.
Presentation of BiH team for the Olympics will be held on Wednesday next week. As FENA learns, in addition to five athletes, five coaches, a repairman and a masseur will travel to Italy. It has not yet been determined who will carry the flag of Bosnia and Herzegovina at the opening ceremony of the Olympics.
For the first time in history, these Olympic Games will be jointly hosted by two cities — a combination of the urban elegance of Milan and the spectacular Dolomites in Cortina, which already hosted the Games in 1956.
Cortina will host a number of disciplines, including women’s alpine skiing, curling, bobsled, skeleton and luge, while other sports will be held in a number of other winter centers across Italy, but to the disappointment of many, we will see the Nordic combined for the last time, which will not be at the 2030 Winter Olympics.
More than 100 medals in 16 sports will be awarded at the Games, including the Olympic debut of ski mountaineering, and nearly 2,900 athletes from around the world are expected to participate. The opening ceremony is planned at the prestigious San Siro stadium in Milan, where both sport and Italian culture will be celebrated.
The organizers of the Olympics have announced that they have the technical capacity to create a snow surface and that there are backup plans if the weather affects the holding of the competition, but they note that in the future care should be taken that the arenas are located at high altitudes.
Among the bearers of the Olympic torch are distinguished names of Italian sports and culture. The Olympic flame relay officially started on December 6 from Rome. In accordance with Olympic customs, the flame lighting ceremony was held on November 26 in Olympia, Greece.
During the 63 days of the relay, the Olympic flame will pass through the whole of Italy through the hands of a total of 10,001 bearers. The route will cover all parts of the country, including famous historical and cultural sites such as Siena, Pompeii and Lake Como.
On January 26, the flame will pass through Cortina d’Ampezzo, to arrive in Milan on February 6, where the opening ceremony of the 2026 Winter Olympics will be held at the San Siro stadium.
(Vijesti.ba/Fena)
