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The 2026 Winter Olympic Games: when and where they will be held, the list of Russian athletes
The XXV Winter Olympic Games will start on Friday, February 6. Athletes from more than 90 countries will take part in the largest international competitions. Russian athletes will also perform at the Olympic arenas, however, as before, in a neutral status, without the national flag and anthem. The information about where and when the 2026 Olympics will be held, which competitions are included in the program and who will represent Russia is in the Izvestia article.
Cities and Olympic venues of the 2026 Games
For the first time in history, the 2026 Winter Olympics will be organized in Milan and Cortina d'Ampezzo at once. The competition will be held from February 6 to 22, with athletes competing not only in the arenas of the cities themselves, but also in the surrounding valleys and provinces of Northern Italy.
The 2026 Olympics will be the fourth in the country's history. Italy has previously hosted the Winter Games twice, including in Cortina d'Ampezzo, and also hosted the Summer Olympics once.
The main part of the ice competitions will be held in Milan. Cortina d'Ampezzo and the nearby clusters will host snow and luge disciplines, as well as curling competitions. A total of 15 sports facilities will be used during the Olympics. The opening ceremony of the Games will take place at the San Siro Stadium in Milan, with a capacity of 77,000 spectators. At the same time, competitions will not be held at the arena, which is the home stadium of Inter and Milan football clubs.
The biathlon starts will be hosted by the Anterselva Biathlon Arena in Cortina d'Ampezzo. The stadium has a capacity of 19,000 spectators and is regularly used for the Biathlon World Cup.
Competitions in alpine skiing and ski mountaineering, a discipline that will be included in the Olympic program for the first time, will be held at the Stelvio Ski Center in the Valtellina Valley (Lombardy region). Up to 7 thousand viewers will be able to watch the launches.
The closing ceremony of the Olympic Games on February 22, 2026 will take place at the Verona Olympic Arena, an ancient amphitheater in Verona built in the 1st century BC. The capacity of the facility is about 12 thousand people, while sports competitions will not be held in the arena. The hockey matches will be hosted by the Milano Santa Giulia Ice Hockey Arena, designed for 14,000 spectators.
How the capital of the Olympic Games-2026 was chosen
Seven countries initially competed for the right to host the 2026 Winter Olympics. In addition to Milan and Cortina d'Ampezzo, Sweden's Stockholm and Ore, Canada's Calgary, Turkey's Erzurum, Japan's Sapporo, Austria's Graz and Switzerland 's Sion claimed the title of Olympic capital.
However, only Italy and Sweden reached the final stage of the selection. The remaining candidates refused to participate in the race for the right to host the Games back in 2018 for economic and organizational reasons.
The final decision on the host country was made on June 24, 2019 at the 134th session of the International Olympic Committee, which was held in Lausanne. According to the voting results, Italy received the right to host the 2026 Olympics.
Medals at the Olympic Games – 2026
The International Olympic Committee presented the medals of the 2026 Winter Olympic Games on July 15, 2025. The presentation took place in Venice. The organizers noted that recycled materials were used in the manufacture of awards, which corresponds to the environmental concept of the Olympiad.
Gold medals for Olympic champions will weigh 500 g and are made of 999-grade silver with a coating of 6 g of gold. The silver awards will be identical in composition and weight, but without gold plating. The bronze medals are cast from an alloy of copper and tin, their weight will be 420 g.
Each medal is divided into two halves, united by Olympic and Paralympic symbols. Thus, the unity of athletes from different countries is emphasized.
116 sets of awards in 16 sports will be awarded at the 2026 Olympics. This is a record number of medals in the history of the Winter Games — in 2022 in Beijing, athletes competed for 109 sets of awards.
Mascots of the Olympic Games – 2026
The official mascots of the Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2026 are ermines Tina and Milo. Their names are derived from the abbreviated names of the host cities - Milan and Cortina d'Ampezzo. According to the official legend, Tina and Milo are brother and sister who grew up in the mountains. Tina enjoys music and art and advocates for environmental protection, while Milo, who was born without one paw, embodies willpower, adaptation and the ability to overcome difficulties.
The mascot of the Russian national team at the 2026 Winter Olympics was a brown Bear with a medal on his chest. The image was created based on the official mascot of the 1980 Olympics in Moscow.
The mascot of the Russian Olympic team
The history of the original Olympic Teddy Bear dates back to 1977, when the organizing committee of the Moscow Olympics announced a competition to develop a mascot. The winner was the cartoonist Viktor Chizhikov, whose sketch was unanimously recognized as the most successful. The official name of the character, Mikhail Potapych Toptygin, was fixed in the documents and official symbols of the Games.
The modern version of the bear, developed at the initiative of the Russian Olympic Committee, retains the key features of the original image — a friendly appearance, an Olympic belt and a classic color scheme, while being adapted to the current requirements of visual identity.
Olympic Torch Relay
The Olympic Torch relay of the 2026 Winter Olympics started on November 26, 2025 in Ancient Olympia. The fire lighting ceremony was held on the territory of the Archaeological Museum in the presence of President of Greece Konstantinos Tasoulas, President of the International Olympic Committee Kirsty Coventry and other officials.
For nine days, the relay passed through the territory of Greece. On December 4, 2025, the official ceremony of handing over the Olympic flame to the organizers of the 2026 Games took place at the Panathinaikos Stadium in Athens. After that, the fire was delivered to Italy.
Olympic Flame ceremony in Milan, December 4, 2025
The Italian leg of the relay began on December 6, exactly two months before the Olympic opening ceremony. The route passed through a number of cities in the country, including Rome, and ended on February 6, 2026 at the San Siro Stadium in Milan, where the grand opening of the Games took place.
Special torches called Essential have been developed for the 2026 Olympics. They are made of recycled aluminum and bronze and run on biofuels. The design of the torches provides for the possibility of refueling up to ten times.
The slogan and the official song of the Olympic Games-2026
The official slogan of the 2026 Winter Olympics was the motto It's Your Vibe, in which the abbreviation IT refers to the Latin name of Italy — Italy.
The candidates for the status of the official song of the Olympics were presented in 2022 at the Sanremo Music Festival. The winner was determined based on the results of an open vote. According to the results, the official song of the Games was the song Fino all'alba ("Before Dawn") performed by the band La Cittadina.
Olympic Villages of the 2026 Games
Due to the significant distance of the sports facilities from each other, the organizers initially planned to build six Olympic villages - in Milan, Cortina d'Ampezzo, Livigno, Predazzo, Anterselve and Bormio. However, the concept was subsequently revised, the number of villages was reduced to three, and the remaining clusters decided to accommodate athletes in existing hotels.
The main Olympic village is located in Milan, in the Porta Romana area. More than €300 million was allocated for its construction. Even at the planning stage, the project attracted criticism from some of the townspeople, who felt that the new complex did not correspond to the architectural appearance of the city.
After the Olympic Games, the Milanese village is planned to be converted into social housing. Additional financing in the amount of about 200 million euros is provided for the implementation of this stage.
The Olympic Village in Cortina d'Ampezzo has more than 1,000 seats. After the end of the Games, the temporary structures will be dismantled. The cost of their construction was €36 million.
The residential complex for athletes in Predazzo cost the organizers €53 million. After the Olympics, the facility will be at the disposal of a local ski school.
Participants of the Olympic Games
Athletes from more than 90 national Olympic committees will participate in the 2026 Winter Olympics. Among the debutants of the Games are the national teams of Benin, Guinea-Bissau and the United Arab Emirates.
The issue of the participation of Russian and Belarusian athletes was resolved in stages. On December 20, 2024, the International Skating Union allowed athletes from Russia and Belarus to qualify for the Olympic qualification in a neutral status. In February 2025, the International Olympic Committee recommended that international federations consider the possibility of allowing Russian athletes to participate in qualifying competitions.
Figure skater Adelia Petrosyan
Nikita Filippov, a ski mountaineer, was the first Russian to qualify for the Olympic Games. At the same time, a number of federations denied athletes from Russia admission. In August 2025, it became known that Russian biathletes would not participate in the Olympic tournament. In September, the International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation made a similar decision. At the same time, Adelia Petrosyan and Peter Gumennik were admitted to the qualifying tournament in Beijing in figure skating.
The final decision on the format of participation of Russian and Belarusian athletes was made on September 19, 2025. The IOC Executive Committee has decided that athletes will be able to compete at the 2026 Olympics exclusively in a neutral status and only in individual disciplines.
The composition of Russian neutral athletes at the 2026 Olympics:
- figure skating — Adelia Petrosyan, Peter Gumennik;
- short track — Alyona Krylova, Ivan Posashkov;
- cross—country skiing - Daria Nepryaeva, Savely Korostelev;
- speed skating — Ksenia Korzhova, Anastasia Semenova;
- ski mountaineering — Nikita Filippov;
- tobogganing — Daria Olesik, Pavel Repilov;
- alpine skiing — Semyon Efimov, Yulia Pleshkova.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
