When the Olympic flame is extinguished on Sunday, everyone will likely be asking the same question: Did a galaxy of scattered venues change the Olympic Games?
Maybe.
But this Olympic Games rookie, who spent 17 days criss-crossing a country, will say that the charm of the host country made up for anything lost by having multiple Olympic villages or six-hour commutes between venues. A concentrated Olympic bubble within a city, this was not. This year’s Winter Games offered a diffusion of sport, enthusiasm, and beauty sprinkled across a nation. Italy did not wave its notorious “What do you want?” hand gesture of upward pinched fingers at the descending Olympic circus, nor did it step aside. It gave a “Ciao tutti!” (Hello, everyone!) and offered a plate of pasta bolognese. Just as the male Alpine skiers’ competition was set on the icy spine of a legendary mountain, so too were the entire Games defined by a host who is unapologetically itself.
Why We Wrote This
The Monitor’s Story Hinckley arrived with a color-coded plan to cover the far-flung 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Games. But she left with her heart charmed by the unexpected ways she encountered Italy as the host country.
Come along with me.
Off we go to Milan’s Ice Skating Arena. But first: Let’s walk to the nearest cafe and stand for a cappuccino, shoulder to shoulder with Milanese commuters, the whoosh of a milk steamer almost drowning out the long vowels of a language you don’t understand.
Then step out into the ever-present rain to catch the city’s wood-paneled trolley to the cold rink on the outskirts of town, where local volunteers shepherd spectators through a maze of security. “Prego, prego!” (which you will soon learn means many things, including “you’re welcome,” “please,” and “go ahead”).
After watching the pirouettes of figure skaters, looking like a twirling jewelry box ballerina come to life, it’s time to go home. Get off one stop early, to resurface on the streets above and find dinner: warm homemade focaccia, of course, with prosciutto and spicy rocket lettuce. Then we climb the cracked marble steps to our rented apartment, stopping to make small talk with our neighbor, “Sì, here for the Olympics.”
In the morning, we travel half a day to the mountains to stay in a small family-run hotel in a nameless hamlet and wait for a bus to see freestyle skiing beside a white field where locals fit in a cross-country skiing loop before work.
Even the buses here, zig-zagging up narrow mountain roads from one venue to the next, must bow to these jagged Italian peaks, squeaking by one another on what must (really, truly?) be one-lane roads. (No sleeping on these commutes, however. The drivers’ system to clear the way on blind turns is to simply lay on the horn.) Even the fast food in the media workspace can’t pretend to be something it’s not. On the menu is pizzoccheri, a local specialty of buckwheat pasta with potatoes, cabbage, and enough cheese to make you blush.
And so it goes. This is the 2026 Winter Olympics, where it’s not just mountainsides deciding athletes’ fate, but a whole region shaping every moment of the experience. But as is often the case with things that are authentic by being original and real, these Olympic Games came with some inconveniences. What started as an audacious color-coded plan to attend multiple events per day was quickly hit by reality, or in this case, a 50-seat passenger bus.
All of which meant that you, dear readers at home, likely had an easier time watching Olympic competitions by flipping between events on NBC from your couch than I did here, calf-deep in snow. But what I did witness here were glimmers of what makes the Games the Games that I could never see from my couch: the gritty in-between moments filled equally with both heartbreak and hope.
I laughed with an Armenian figure skater, as she told me about making eye contact with her mom in the stands mid-air and reminding herself not to wave. I helped a lost woman find the entrance to the men’s giant slalom event, only to learn that her son was competing for Thailand. She told me about the special Thai noodle bowl she made him the night before to calm his nerves. And I cried, a lot and maybe too much, not during the medal ceremonies but in the moments right before, when winners and losers hugged one another off camera, offering congratulations and condolences in equal measure.
If I’m being honest, I’ve never fully understood why the International Olympic Committee, NBC, and various sponsors insist we be “inspired” by the Games. I have never had any desire to fly around these icy surfaces with wooden sticks or knives strapped to my feet, and after seeing what some of these athletes do up close, I can say I’m less inspired than ever to try some of these things. Just standing at the base of the big air jump made my feet tingle.
But when I watched Italian speedskater Francesca Lollobrigida and U.S. bobsledder Elana Myers Taylor holding their young sons after winning gold medals, it reminded me it’s okay – great, even – to be here doing what I love to do while also having a young son of my own on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. After watching the slopestyle skiers repeatedly faceplant and then indelicately walk around the snow to collect their gear before continuing to flip their way down the course, I was less embarrassed to ask potentially silly questions about sports I knew little about or try my hand at a different style of writing. I pictured these skiers at the base of the course, the snowy evidence of failure still clinging to their pants, shrugging with a sly smile and a “Why not?”
And when I submitted a story on deadline and felt consumed by how I could have made it better, or when I felt guilty that I couldn’t cover more events, I would think about how so many athletes – the vast, vast majority of them – come here, do the best they can, fall short, then start again.
This, I guess, is what inspiration is. And for the past 17 days, it filled my cup beyond measure. So, too, did the local waiter who explained how to make real Milan risotto, and the Bormio hotel owner who drove me to the bus stop in his personal car when he saw me dragging my suitcase through the snow, and the young waitress who has only ever lived in the Italian Alps, asking me to describe Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains.
In Italy, I cheered on the world, and Italy cheered for me.