Next year’s Winter Olympics might be called the Milan Cortina Games but they will actually be staged across a large swath of northern Italy. Covering an area of more than 22,000 square kilometres (nearly 10,

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.

MILAN - 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.