Pre-homologation of the new Olympic track in Cortina
Cortina (FIL/25 Mrz 2025) Cortina d'Ampezzo's 'Eugenio Monti' Sliding Centre will host bobsleigh, luge and skeleton competitions during the Milano-Cortina 2026 Olympic Winter Games. The track, built in the 1920s, has been the scene of prestigious sports activities and is now undergoing redevelopment with a total investment of € 118,424,000.00. This redevelopment is divided into three phases: removal of obsolete parts (already completed, with a part preserved for museum purposes); construction of the new 1,730-meter track that partially follows the original track with 16 curves and insertion of the work into the landscape with sustainable materials and techniques for a total area of 7 hectares; and construction of a memorial telling the story of sliding sports related to the local area. On January 31, 2024, the work contract was awarded to Impresa Pizzarotti, with the start of on-site activities on February 19, 2024. Pre-homologation of the track is scheduled from March 24 to March 30, 2025. Completion is scheduled for November 5, 2025 with subsequent homologation and handover to Fondazione Milano Cortina 2026 to hold the Games. Before hosting the Games, the new track will be used for international training of both Federations FIL and IBSF and for Test-Events in November 2025.
Eugenio Monti: the sporting spirit of this historic track
Eugenio Monti won the first Italian title in 1954 with a new bobsleigh model that was built in Cortina, where he won two silver medals in the two-man and four-man bobsleigh in 1956 on the track that was later named after him. His name is associated with one of the most beautiful and exemplary sports stories. At the 1964 Games, he lent a bolt to the British team, they later won gold ahead of the Italians. For this, he received the Pierre de Coubertin Medal, an award given to athletes who demonstrate the spirit of sportmanship in the Olympic Games. Monti won Olympic gold in the two-man and four-man bobsleigh events at the next Olympic Games in Grenoble in 1968.
Technical data
Length of track: 1,730 meters
Curves: 16
Maximum acceleration: 140 km/h
Expected race time: 55/60 seconds
Confirmed sports: Women's Monobob, 2-woman Bobsleigh, 2-man Bobsleigh, 4-man Bobsleigh; Luge singles for women and men, Luge doubles for women and men, Luge Team relay and Skeleton for Women and Men.
Urban construction site: with very few access difficulties, embedded in a natural environment of unique value. The entire track will be covered by a structure with a green roof; the buildings will be constructed in the shape of a typical gabled roof, reminiscent of the local architecture of Cortina d'Ampezzo, and the entire area will be greened with pedestrian paths and roads made of Dolomite gravel.
The world's first glycol racetrack
The track, designed to minimize environmental impact, features an advanced cooling system, delivered in February 2025, with a cooling capacity of 3,150 kW and environmentally friendly solutions. This is a sustainable system that is being used for the first time in the world in a sports competition with glycol instead of ammonia as a refrigerant. With this technology, the use of ammonia has been reduced by 96%, and it is only used in the compressors in the machine room to ensure cooling.
Its total power is 4.4 megawatts, which ensures that the ice is produced along the entire route. The carrier medium – for the first time in Europe and for the first time worldwide in sports competitions – is glycol, which is cooled in the refrigeration center and then pumped along the entire route. Along the curves and straights, there are steel pipes that serve as a structural part of the track and transport the fluid until it cools the concrete and creates ice on all the walls of the sliding center. To control the temperature along the track, 33 pumping stations have been prepared, where the temperature can be adjusted depending on the intensity of the sun. Individual sections can in turn be divided into 77 zones, where the temperature is regulated to achieve maximum precision at each point on the track. To reduce energy consumption, the waste heat is recovered, collected and fed into the individual buildings on the bobsleigh track via an internal district heating network.
The construction site: the people who made the dream come true
From February 2024 to March 2025, about 135 people were involved in the realization of the structure, which was built over 300 days. The Pizzarotti company, which was in charge of the project, entered into agreements with 35 contractors – mainly from the Belluno region and other regions of Italy – and 115 material suppliers. The construction management was entrusted to ITS. The work is supervised by the commissioner appointed by the Italian government, Arch. Fabio Massimo Saldini, who is also the managing director of Società Infrastrutture Milano Cortina 2026 (www.simico.it), a 100% public company whose statutory purpose, in accordance with the Olympic Law No. 31 of May 8, 2020 31, has as its statutory purpose the realization, as a central purchasing body and awarding authority, also through the conclusion of agreements with other contracting authorities, of the works defined in the decree of the President of the Council of Ministers.
Icing: artisanal modeling
Icing is the phase in which, by gradually lowering the temperature to -21° in the center and up to -15/-18° along the track, the glycol begins to freeze the water that is sprayed onto the surface. This activity, together with the manual modeling by the ice makers, allows a layer of ice about 4 cm thick to form along the entire track.
The pre-homologation: first tests on the track
The pre-homologation, scheduled for March 24-30, 2025, is the test required by the international federations to verify that all safety measures and sporting parameters have been met and implemented. It consists of a series of descents for the various disciplines, which thus begin to familiarize themselves with the various starts and descend the entire track.
The athletes who will take the tests
There are 12 participating nations: Austria (AUT), Canada (CAN), China (CHN), Great Britain (GBR), Germany (GER), Italy (ITA), South Korea (KOR), Latvia (LAT), Romania (ROM), Switzerland (SUI), Slovakia (SVK) and the United States (USA).
The total number of athletes is 60, distributed as follows:
- Luge: 11 international athletes and 7 Italian athletes.
- Bobsleigh: 17 international athletes and 17 Italian athletes.
- Skeleton: 4 international athletes and 4 Italian athletes.
Athletes’ quotes:
US-Women’s Double Chevonne Forgan and Sophia Kirkby participate in Cortina track pre-homologation. The 2025 World Championship bronze medalists traveled to Italy on Sunday March 23.
“We’re so excited and happy to have been chosen to go to the pre-homologation, and we are just so excited to learn a new track,” said Forgan. “I think getting the extra runs in Cortina before the Olympic season is really exciting because it gives us a chance to really learn the track, and being able to figure out the lines and take these runs is a really cool opportunity.”
“We are really happy we are selected to go test the new track which is going to be added to the new event, women’s doubles luge,” said Kirkby. “I plan to go over there and get as much information as I can to better prepare myself or the upcoming Olympics, such as the lines in how we are going to steer and navigate down this brand-new track.”
photo track: SIMICO
