Cortina cable car will not be ready in time for Winter Games start, letter shows
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Work on the system began behind schedule.
PHOTO: REUTERS
MILAN – A cable car intended to carry spectators to the women’s Olympic Alpine skiing events in Cortina d’Ampezzo will not be ready in time, prompting Games organisers to request school closures to ease the pressure on the Dolomite resort’s transport system, a letter seen by Reuters showed.
The Apollonio-Socrepes lift is one of the most contentious pieces
Work on the system, designed to take fans from the town centre directly to the slopes, began behind schedule, and some residents raised safety concerns about its location in an area prone to landslides.
Despite mounting doubts over the project, still unfinished a week before the opening of the Games, Simico, the state-backed agency in charge of Olympics infrastructure, said on Jan 30 that work on the site was progressing according to schedule and would continue over the weekend.
But in a letter dated Jan 29 to the central government’s top representative in Belluno province, chief Games operations officer Andrea Francisi said Simico had notified organisers the previous day that the gondola lift would not be delivered within the planned timeframe.
On Jan 30, Simico said technical works would be completed early in the coming week, with required safety checks to follow.
In the letter, which has not been previously reported, Francisi described the lift as an essential element of the Olympic mobility plan for Cortina, which will also host curling, bobsleigh, luge and skeleton events.
“The loss of this strategic infrastructure, just ahead of the start of Olympic operations, creates significant organisational challenges, with major impacts on flow management, on security and on the overall ability of the system to absorb the alternative mobility required,” the letter said.
As a result, organisers asked authorities to close schools in Cortina on Feb 10 and 12, and if possible on Feb 11, to ease the pressure on transport network during critical days for Olympic operations.
Closing schools on the most critical days was described as “indispensable” to safeguard order and ensure the transport network could function. The women’s downhill event will be held on Feb 8.
Games organisers have capped the number of tickets for events in Cortina pending clarity over whether the cable car would be ready for the Games, Reuters reported in November.
A spokesperson for the Milano-Cortina 2026 organising committee told Reuters on Jan 30 that they have so far released a number of tickets in line with the capacity guaranteed by road transport.
Set in the Dolomites, Cortina is one of Italy’s top winter resorts and staged the Games in 1956. But it has no rail station and access by the only main road into town can often be slow at peak times.
Cars remain the main way to get around a town that is home to only around 5,500 residents.
Special measures are being introduced to try to ease congestion during the Olympics.
Only vehicles with permits will be allowed to access parts of the town – these are being made available to local households, second-home owners and people providing services during the Games.
Fans with tickets for Olympic events will have to leave their cars at designated areas and take shuttle buses to reach the events.
Meanwhile, the head of the Games said the building of a new sliding centre in Italy, instead of moving to another country as recommended by the International Olympic Committee, was the right decision.
Organisers successfully completed a brand new sliding centre in Cortina just in time despite IOC pressure a few years ago to move it to an already existing facility to save time and money.
Games CEO Andrea Varnier said he felt vindicated by the decision, given that hosting the sliding competitions elsewhere was fine in principle, but far too complex a prospect to consider midway through preparations.
“It was quite an adventure, time was limited,” he said on the Games website.
“As our Games are widespread, I’m very open to having venues outside of the host country, but this should be discussed at the beginning of the journey. In the middle (of the journey), to go and do one sport in another country is extremely complex.” REUTERS, AFP
