One Year to Cortina Olympic Curling

With today’s celebrations of one year to the 2026 Milano-Cortina Olympic Winter Games, curling athlete dreams will start heading into overdrive.

Amos Mosaner, third for Joel Retornaz’s Italian fours team, was on stage at Milan’s Teatro Strehler today for a ceremony along with IOC president Thomas Bach and various Olympic reps from Italy, Greece, Australia, China, France and the USA.

Can you spot him in the photo below? You should be able to—he ranks first in height, as usual, and he also looks resplendent in an Aeronautica Militare uniform.

Eagle-eyed curling fans will also notice, to the left, Australia’s Tahli Gill and Dean Hewitt, the mixed doubles pair that crushed Canada’s dreams at the Beijing Olympics in 2022.

The first “early bird” phase of ticket sales launched today, with some 350,000 fans already registered online. General sales open in April.

Around 2,900 athletes from over 90 National Olympic Committees (NOCs) are expected to participate. The Games will feature 13 competition venues for eight sports, featuring Olympic disciplines and 116 events (including eight new ones) in total.

As curling fans know, today isn’t really the “One Year Out” start date… because the Roaring Game gets started two days early, on Feb. 4, 2026.

Bach noted the growing interest in the next winter Olympiad.

“The excitement is building and has already reached millions of people,” he said.

“Programmes like Italia dei Giochi, Gen26 and the Cultural Olympiad are spreading the Olympic values, promoting active lifestyles, and blending sport and culture all across Italy. The Torch Relay will bring the Olympic flame to every Italian province. The volunteer programme has attracted nearly four times as many applications as there are positions, reflecting the immense enthusiasm for these Olympic Winter Games.

“All of this and countless other initiatives demonstrate in a wonderful way that the legacy of Milano Cortina 2026 is taking shape long before the lighting of the Olympic flame.”

Curling’s official test event will be the World Juniors, scheduled for Apr. 12-21 at the famed Olympic Ice Stadium in Cortina d’Ampezzo.

Curling interest has been sweeping across Italy, both with the programs Bach mentioned and other efforts.

One is the annual CONI Winter Trophy event, for Italian children under 14 years of age.

This year’s edition saw a sheet of curling ice assembled in downtown Roccaraso, in the Abruzzo region. Two teams from Pinerolo—the host town of the 2006 Turin Olympics—competed and one placed first overall.

To be fair to Pinerolo’s opponents, who mostly hailed from non-curling regions, the playing conditions rapidly depleted as a blizzard of snow was dumped on the participants.

Abruzzo, by the way, is just east of Rome, in the south of the country!