Around 300,000 tickets have already been sold for the Milano-Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics, Andrea Varnier, the CEO of the Milano-Cortina Foundation, said on Tuesday.
“We launched the ticketing program for sales to the general public on February 6,” Varnier told a press conference at the Foreign Press Association in Rome.
“We asked the public to register and we received more than 350,000 requests, 70% of which came from abroad.
“These people secured places in three waves of draws and, in the first six days, we sold almost 300,000 tickets.
“It’s a very positive start”.
Varnier added the the programme to recruit volunteers was going well too.
“There are around 18,000 (volunteer) places available and usually one expects to have around double the number of applications,” Varnier said.
“But to date there have been 96,000 (applications).
“It’s an extraordinary number and it shows how much excitement there is for Milan-Cortina”.
He said the Olympic torch relay would take in all of Italy’s provinces and its 60 UNESCO World Heritage sites over 63 days.
He also announced an international roadshow to present the Games in Munich, Paris, New York, Osaka, Tokyo, Oslo, Stockholm Seoul and Beijing.
The 2026 Winter Olympics will take place from February 6 to 22 2026 at sites across Northern Italy.