July 21

SKI MOUNTAINEERING WILL BE OLYMPIC AT MILANO-CORTINA 2026 OLYMPIC GAMES

Posted by Héctor Rubio on July 21, 2021 in ski, ski alpinisme, ski mountaineering, ski mountainering, ski mountaneering, ski touring, skimo, trail running spain | Leave a comment

SKI MOUNTAINEERING OLYMPIC AT MILANO-CORTINA 2026 OLYMPIC GAMES. Our SKIMO section celebrates the official news that we already advanced here a month ago: ski mountaineering will be at the Winter Olympic Games 2026.

It was then that the IOC Executive Committee confirmed that the decision to include mountain skiing in the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics would be taken today in Tokyo… as it has been. Mountain skiing is now officially an Olympic sport.

SKI MOUNTAINEERING OLYMPIC AT MILANO-CORTINA 2026
CONFIRMED BY TEH OLYMPIC COMMITTEE

The IOC Session yesterday unanimously approved the inclusion of ski mountaineering, governed by the International Ski Mountaineering Federation (ISMF), as an additional sport to the programme of this specific edition of the Winter Olympic Games.

The Olympic skimo program in Milano Cortina 2026 will feature five events:

Two men’s events: Sprint / Individual
Two women’s Sprint/ individual events
A mixed relay event

These five proposed events will follow the principles established for all other events in the program, including the implementation of a complete model of place exchange without an additional or independent Games venue for mountain skiing.

For this, skimo will have a quota of 48 athletes (24 men / 24 women) within the overall total of the Winter Olympic Games for 2,900 athletes of all disciplines.

This framework reiterates key considerations around athlete quotas and the venue’s master plan in order to reduce the cost and complexity of hosting the Olympic Games in a post-pandemic context.

SKI MOUNTAINEERING OLYMPIC: KEYS IN FAVOR.

In its previous decision in June, as we have already mentioned, the IOC Executive Committee highlighted the following key features of mountain skiing that supported its inclusion in the Milano Cortina 2026 program:

These five ski mountaineering events have already contributed to the success of the 2020 Lausanne Winter Youth Olympic Games
Ski mountaineering is a particularly popular sport in Italy, with deep historical and sporting roots in the Alpine regions.
Italy is also one of the world’s leading nations in the sport, with several international successes in major competitions over the past 10 years; Skimo is a fast-growing winter sport among amateur and weekend practitioners.
Europe is the continent where ski mountaineering has undergone the greatest development, but in recent years more and more participants have been identified, both professionally and amateurly, around the world.

Next steps: The full schedule of the event and athlete quotas will be determined at the IOC Executive Committee meeting in June 2022.