MILAN, Feb. 6 — Sebastian Coe, head of World Athletics and an International Olympic Committee (IOC) member, believes the geographically spread-out model used for the Milan-Cortina 2026 Olympic Winter Games is “a good approach.”
Milan-Cortina 2026 is set to be the most spread-out Winter Games in history, with competitions divided into four clusters – the urban hub of Milan and the mountain venues of Cortina, Valtellina and Val di Fiemme.
“I think it’s inevitable in a winter setting. It’s more complicated than a summer setting. But the movement IOC is moving towards – a more regional approach, is part of the vision of the Olympic Agenda 2020,” Coe told Xinhua on Friday.
“I think it’s a good approach, although it poses some challenges.” Under the dispersed hosting model, the Games will cover more than 22,000 square kilometers in northern Italy.
A total of 116 events will be held across the four clusters, separated by average distances of more than 250 kilometers, with one-way travel often taking several hours.
Coe also believes the “more regional approach” has already been adopted in some way for the Olympic Summer Games. “If you look forward to the 2032 Games in Brisbane, the Summer Games, it is also spread-out,” he said.
“They would have a regional approach in Queensland. So Brisbane is not the only city to host the events in the way that London was [in 2012].
Of course when you have a football tournament, and you have other sports, it’s likely that they have to be distributed amongst other cities. But Brisbane is really the first of the regional [Summer] Games.
And that will face the same challenges too.” Venues of the 2032 Summer Olympics and Paralympics are planned to be located in three main zones – Brisbane, Gold Coast and the Sunshine Coast, with regional venues scattered amongst other cities in Queensland also set to stage competitions.
“I think the overall objective is trying to remove cost and make the Games more relevant, salient in the lives of young people,” Coe said. “It’s the challenge that every sport faces.
And that’s not unique to the International Olympic Committee. It’s something on a daily basis that we think about and want to address in World Athletics.” (Namibia Daily News / Xinhua)
