Canadian Olympians look for unity across sprawling Milan Cortina Games

Construction work takes place at the Cortina Sliding Center, venue for the bob, luge and skeleton disciplines at the Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics, in Cortina D'Ampezzo, Italy, Tuesday, March 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

Canada’s chef de mission at an Olympic Games wants to get to as many venues as possible in a day to cheer on the country’s athletes.

Jennifer Heil needs a magical flying aid to do that in the Milan Cortina Games, which will be the most spread out in Winter Games history.

“Yeah, I’m going to Mary Poppins it around the Games. It’s going to be a real challenge,” Heil said.

The 2026 Winter Olympics opening Feb. 6 won’t have a central campus, but six Olympic villages across 22,000 square kilometres in Northern Italy.

“The good news is that the athletes are in their venues, they’re not moving, their travel time is actually quite minimal,” Heil said. “In many ways, it’ll be easier for the athletes. Much, much, much harder for people like me.

“I will be in transport, either sitting in a van or on a train, for quite a few hours in these Games.”

Milan is the site for hockey, figure skating, speedskating and short track speedskating.

Cortina d’Ampezzo, 420 kilometres to the northeast, hosts curling, bobsled, skeleton, luge and women’s alpine skiing.

Bormio for men’s alpine skiing and Livigno for freestyle skiing and snowboarding are in the Valtellina cluster, over 200 kilometres north of Milan and 300 kilometres west of Cortina.

The Ansterselva Biathlon Arena is 65 kilometres north of Cortina near the Austrian border. The Fiemme Valley, where cross-country skiing, ski jumping and nordic combined will be contested, is 85 kilometres south of Cortina.

Canadian athletes will be dispersed across a wide geographic area. Curlers aren’t likely to meet snowboarders.

“We’ve been working on this for years, working on how do we unite our team?” Canadian Olympic Committee chief executive officer Dave Shoemaker said. “We’ve done it in other Olympic Games. This one has its unique challenges, but we’re ready for it.

“We have social media tools and other tools to try to create that feeling. We’re pushing ourselves to innovate ways of making it feel like, even though we’re going to be in six or seven different locations, that it will always still feel like the same Team Canada presence in the village with the same snacks from home, the same mascots from home, the same services, whether you’re in Milan, Cortina, Ansterselva or someplace in between.”

The opening ceremonies and its parade of nations will be held in Milan’s San Siro Stadium and the mountain clusters of Cortina, Livigno and Predazzo simultaneously.

“The opening ceremony is not going to require athletes all to come to one central location. They will participate in the opening ceremonies from where they are,” Shoemaker said.

“That will allow more athletes to potentially participate in the open ceremony than they might otherwise.

“We know how athletes place performance as their paramount consideration. We’d have a lot that would decline to participate, but if it’s there in their backyard, there’s a much better chance of having all of Team Canada, that are at least present in Italy as of the sixth of February, take part in it.”

Winter Games often have a city and a mountain hub; Vancouver and Whistler, B.C., in 2010, for example.

Widening the Sea to Sky Highway between B.C.’s host communities to shorten travel time was seen as necessary by the IOC and the host committee at the time.

But to encourage more economical Games bids, the International Olympic Committee has since backed off “build, build, build” with a motto of “reduce, reuse and recycle” to host a Games.

The IOC states Milan Cortina is using 85 per cent of existing infrastructure to reduce construction.

“I totally support having a more sustainable Games, but it’s going also make it more challenging to feel like a united team out there,” said Canadian freestyle halfpipe skier Brendan Mackay of Calgary.

“I’m still excited to watch the other events that are up in Livigno. Then hopefully I will be able to make it into Milan for closing ceremonies too. That would be really cool to get to go walk with athletes I didn’t get to see compete live.”

While Italy doesn’t have a venue 15,000 kilometres away from the host city, as Paris did for surfing in Tahiti in 2024, athletes will have to forge Canadian team spirit where they are.

“I think I’ll feel a part of it for sure,” said Cultus Lake, B.C., ski cross racer Reece Howden, who will also be in Livigno.

“It is unfortunate to not have everybody centralized for sure. That was and is a big part of the Games. I’m also a realist, and I understand that Milano doesn’t have a ski hill that’s close enough. Even like with Vancouver and Whistler, you can’t expect it to be all that close.”

Calgary ski jumper Abigail Strate will be out in the Fiemme Valley with her teammates and the cross-country ski team, wanting to know what’s going on with Canadian athletes elsewhere.

“Technology is going to be our friend there,” she said. “In terms of social media, it’s pretty easy these days to stay connected that way.

“We’re not going to be able to really go to many other events in person. We want access to a TV so we can be watching those sports happening live.”

The COC has traditionally set up a Canada House in the main host city where athletes can meet up with their family, friends and each other, and where Canadian fans can drop by.

“Because of the dispersed nature of these Games, we’ve revised this to a Canada Olympic house celebration series that now will rotate from Cortina to Livigno to Milan on four separate days,” Shoemaker said.

“We hope that that creates excitement throughout the Olympic clusters. We’ll certainly take great note of what works and what hasn’t worked because the model for the French Alps in 2030 will very much resemble this model.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 26, 2026.

Donna Spencer, The Canadian Press