By Elvira Pollina MILAN (Reuters) -Italy began the one-year countdown to the Winter Olympics on Thursday with a series of events designed to fuel enthusiasm for the Games that will be co-hosted by Milan and the Alpine town of Cortina d'Ampezzo.

The century-old sliding centre being completely rebuilt for the 2026 Olympic Winter Games is pushing the deadline so tight that the IOC has gone so far as to demand a Plan B option that would require moving bobsleigh,

Sochi’s media village was still under construction, and showers ran yellow when journalists arrived for the 2014 Winter Games. The 2016 Rio

Next year’s Olympics might be called the Milan Cortina Games but it will actually be staged across a large swath of northern Italy spread over five different venue clusters.

Olympic curling champion Eve Muirhead believes Milan-Cortina 2026 will be a mix of the Winter Games’ past and future as it combines alpine resort settings with a wide geographic spread of existing venues to keep costs down.

Sheffield's Luke Digby and Anastasia Vaipan-Law compete in the Pairs Short Program during the ISU World Figure Skating Championships at the Bell Centre on March 20, 2024 in Montreal. They are ones to watch on the road to the Winter Olympics (Picture: Minas Panagiotakis/Getty Images)

With a year to go to the Winter Olympics, why could sliding events move to the United States, what is skimo and what are Team GB's medal chances in Milan 2026?