Several hundred people took part in a march on Saturday in the streets of Milan to protest against the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan-Cortina, noted an AFP journalist.
The demonstrators, surrounded by a large police cordon, gathered near the future Olympic Village and marched in the rain through the streets of the Lombardy metropolis to denounce the impact of the 2026 Olympics on real estate prices and the environment.
This march was organized two years before the Olympic fortnight by the IOC (Comitato Insostenibili Olimpiadi, literally committee of unsustainable games and an allusion to the International Olympic Committee), a collective of associations, whose “objective is the defense of territories against to the destruction caused by the 2026 Olympics. Among the participants in this march, Daniele Macchi, 60, who works in tourism: “What we fear from these Games is that it will leave scars on the environment and tourism. They are just a money-making machine,” he explained to AFP.
“We are asking for more money for environmental protection and for housing policies,” added Simona Antonioli, 29 years old and employed in a retirement home. “We denounce the fact that 3.6 billion euros, mainly public funds, will be spent on infrastructure works to promote fossil mobility which will not even be ready for the Olympics,” added Alberto Di Monte, a 38-year-old bookseller, member of the Association of Proletarian Hikers.
The next Winter Games will take place from February 6 to 22, 2026 in Milan and Cortina, as well as in several winter sports resorts in northern Italy. The Italian government has just decided to build a bobsleigh and luge track in Cortina d’Ampezzo at a cost of 82 million euros, while the IOC was in favor of relocating these sports to an already existing track, stranger.