CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy — In the primary sq. of this city excessive within the Italian Alps that may host lots of the Winter Olympic Video games this month, there stands a sculpture of a chic woman clutching a Dior purse and skis. In line with this place that has lengthy catered to the world’s rich and well-known, she is translucent, as if carved from ice. However curious guests who contact her quickly notice: She is plastic.
The statue is a becoming metaphor for the more and more elaborate measures being taken to protect a wintry actuality that’s disappearing. As local weather change brings hotter climate, the snow that after blanketed Cortina comes much less typically. Ski lifts whir up mountainsides of naked rock and brown grass, however for the white strips of synthetic snow on the pistes.
A glowing, life-sized ice sculpture of a girl in a chic gown and hat stands illuminated at evening in a pedestrian space, with the high-end Dior boutique seen within the background. Because the city prepares for the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics, the presence of main international luxurious manufacturers underscores the resort’s standing as an elite worldwide vacation spot
Valerio Muscella for NPR
conceal caption
toggle caption
Valerio Muscella for NPR
In Italy’s bid to host the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan and within the Dolomites — a UNESCO World Heritage Site — organizers made a daring pledge to be sustainable and use the Video games to “showcase the significance of defending delicate mountain ecosystems.” However because the opening ceremony approaches, environmentalists inform a special story. They describe a panorama now scarred by the felling of old-growth forests to make method for brand spanking new infrastructure, and Alpine rivers depleted to feed snow cannons. And so they say the handfuls of development tasks permitted for the Video games are urbanizing a mountain atmosphere already confused by overtourism.
“Cortina is named Queen of the Dolomites. However we should always rename her the ‘Queen of Cement,'” says 70-year-old Luigi Casanova, director of a neighborhood environmental group, Mountain Wilderness, surveying the small city the place greater than 20 cranes dot the panorama.
An overhead shot captures development of the brand new Cortina Sliding Middle, a observe spanning slightly below a mile with 16 curves, designed to host bobsled, skeleton, and luge occasions for the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics.
Valerio Muscella for NPR
conceal caption
toggle caption
Valerio Muscella for NPR
He is standing beside a brand new bobsled observe that snakes its method down the mountainside via the stays of an historical forest and butts up towards the city. A whole lot of larch bushes have been chopped down to create space for it.
“These are bushes that survived two world wars,” says Casanova, who has spent a lifetime strolling these mountains. “Troopers who fought right here had the sensitivity to preserve this extraordinary heritage. However they could not survive the vandals of 2025.”
The day the boys with the chainsaws arrived, Casanova was at this web site with well-known Italian cellist Mario Brunello, who has lengthy advocated for safeguarding nature within the Dolomites.
“It was a dramatic and extraordinary distinction: The melody of the cello — him sitting there on a stool, taking part in these items — whereas simply 10 or 15 meters behind him, there was the crashing sound of these larches falling,” Casanova says.
Luigi Casanova, director of the native environmental group Mountain Wilderness, stands earlier than the development web site of the brand new bobsled observe. He and different activists have criticized the mission for the broader environmental influence on the Dolomite Mountains, that are a UNESCO World Heritage web site.
Valerio Muscella for NPR
conceal caption
toggle caption
Valerio Muscella for NPR
A skier stands on the prime of a run served by the Tre Croci – Son Forca chairlift, searching over the Ampezzo valley earlier than starting a descent. The positioning, dominated by the Cristallo massif, highlights the intersection of high-altitude sport and the posh branding that characterizes Cortina’s preparation for the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics
Valerio Muscella for NPR
conceal caption
toggle caption
Valerio Muscella for NPR
The Worldwide Olympic Committee had needed to carry the bobsled occasions in Innsbruck, Austria, the place there may be already a world-class observe. However Matteo Salvini, Italy’s deputy prime minister and transport and infrastructure minister, rejected the suggestion and made holding the sporting occasion in Italy a degree of nationwide satisfaction.
“The Video games have to be Italian video games,” Salvini wrote on X in February 2024. He accused environmentalists of making an attempt to “sabotage” the Olympics and of betraying Italy “in entrance of the entire world.”
Environmental organizations have stood their floor. Eight associations, together with the Italian department of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), made a joint assertion that they discovered “no proof to certify the environmental sustainability” of the tasks for the Winter Olympics, which was promised within the candidacy file in 2019.
380 Olympic swimming pools of water — for snow
A snow cannon operates on the Socrepes slopes on the foot of the Tofane massif, producing synthetic snow, doubtlessly depleting mountain aquifers and damaging delicate aquatic ecosystems. The power price is substantial, as an unlimited community of high-pressure pumps and cooling techniques should run repeatedly.
Valerio Muscella for NPR
conceal caption
toggle caption
Valerio Muscella for NPR
It’s estimated that the Video games will want 84.8 million cubic toes of water, or the equal of 380 Olympic swimming swimming pools, for snowmaking alone. That is drawn from Alpine rivers and streams, says Fabio Tullio, an environmental activist and member of Open Olympics 2026, a watchdog group made up of environmental associations.
He drives NPR to a spot on the fringe of Cortina, the place the Boite River flows down via the Dolomite Mountains. The once-pristine panorama is a constructing web site, with bushes minimize down and left on the aspect, together with earth dug out. A generator growls close by, muffling the river’s burble, and filling the alpine air with the stench of diesel. Tullio reveals us the black plastic pipe from which water is sucked out of the river and pumped up the slopes to make snow. Official statements say this attracts 25 gallons per second.
An aerial view of the Olympic Ice Stadium (Stadio Olimpico del Ghiaccio) throughout a part of large structural renovation for the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics
Valerio Muscella for NPR
conceal caption
toggle caption
Valerio Muscella for NPR
In-depth research to completely perceive the influence of this and different infrastructure on the area’s ecology and biodiversity haven’t been accomplished. The truth is, publicly accessible paperwork present that no full environmental evaluation was carried out for over 60 per cent of the some 98 tasks permitted for the Video games.
“That is the good omission and the most important concern,” Tullio says. “That finally there may very well be a destructive legacy for this area.”
A development crane towers over a constructing wrapped in scaffolding within the heart of Cortina d’Ampezzo. The city is at present present process an enormous city transformation with greater than 20 cranes dotting the panorama, as organizers work to finish roughly 98 permitted infrastructure tasks Video games.
Valerio Muscella for NPR
conceal caption
toggle caption
Valerio Muscella for NPR
Simico, the governmental firm answerable for Olympic infrastructure, did not reply to NPR relating to the challenges to the declare of sustainability.
The Winter Olympics in Italy does use principally current sporting venues. Nonetheless, these Video games carry a whole lot of new development to this rural land, as tasks are permitted beneath funding proposals for the Olympics. Simico has mentioned it believes the infrastructure being constructed — a lot of which will not be prepared till years after the Video games are completed — resembling roads and automotive parks, will probably be helpful for residents.
However at a neighborhood cafe constructed within the conventional alpine type with wooden partitions, Roberta Zanna, the pinnacle of the opposition celebration in Cortina d’Ampezzo’s native council, says many residents don’t need this “growth.” They fear it’s going to additional harm their atmosphere and urbanize rural alpine life. “After which we are going to actually lose our id,” she says.
A waiter in a proper white jacket serves patrons contained in the wood-paneled Bar Posta on the historic Lodge de la Poste. A cornerstone of Ampezzo social life because the nineteenth century and a favourite hang-out of Ernest Hemingway, the bar represents the “old-world” heritage of Cortina
Valerio Muscella for NPR
conceal caption
toggle caption
Valerio Muscella for NPR
Pedestrians stroll previous the historic Lodge Cortina and luxurious retail outlets within the city’s central pedestrian space. Because the 2026 Winter Olympics started, the distinction between Cortina’s conventional Alpine allure and the rising commercialization has grow to be a focus for native critics.
Valerio Muscella for NPR
conceal caption
toggle caption
Valerio Muscella for NPR
Already within the Dolomites, hundreds of vacationers recurrently crowd at spots made well-known by influencers on social media. As soon as quiet spots visited by hikers have been overwhelmed by folks arriving by automotive to take selfies. Cortina’s mayor has mentioned that Lake Sorapis, an excellent turquoise lake surrounded by jagged peaks, can see crowds of over 2,000 folks go to in a single day within the excessive season.
The Prada brand is prominently displayed on a pylon of the Tre Croci – Son Forca chairlift, which stands over noticeably skinny snow cowl on the slopes of the Cristallo massif. This picture captures two main challenges going through the Winter Olympics: the rising reliance on personal luxurious funding to fund infrastructure and the stark actuality of local weather change within the Dolomites.
Valerio Muscella for NPR
conceal caption
toggle caption
Valerio Muscella for NPR
A contemporary corten metal monument stands alongside the snow-dusted arrival street, designating Cortina d’Ampezzo as a “Città Olimpica” (Olympic Metropolis). The signal commemorates each the 1956 Winter Video games and its position as a bunch venue for the upcoming Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics.
Valerio Muscella for NPR
conceal caption
toggle caption
Valerio Muscella for NPR
When Cortina d’Ampezzo hosted the Winter Olympics in 1956, it had a optimistic impact in town, Zanna says. Athletes and onlookers arrived principally by practice on tracks which have lengthy since gone. Again then, there was no must construct new automotive parks or cowl prairies in tarmac for brand spanking new roads. The brand new sports activities services and ski lifts helped strengthen the native economic system. The snow fell solely from the sky, and “one of many ice skating occasions was organised on one among our frozen lakes,” says Zanna. “It was a time after we might take into consideration rising the city.”
However with the alternatives for snowboarding in Cortina melting away attributable to rising temperatures from local weather change, and the mountain ecosystems already beneath stress from tourism, Zanna says now is just not the time for extra development, extra synthetic snow, extra luxurious inns, and extra tourism that these Winter Olympics promise to carry.
