Milano-Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games - Olympic Day 13 (Cortina)

 February 19

After more than two weeks of winter-free Winter Olympics, we woke up to this:

Cortina looks quite nice in 6-8" of new snow! Steve went out to go out pin trading, but after about 10 min, his vest and hat were so covered with snow that no one could see his pins. Beth took several loads of laundry to the local laundry (no laundromats here - real people do the laundry!) so that we have some clean clothes to wear by the end of our trip. After these trips, we decide to stay in for the rest of the morning so Steve could blog.

We've got 7:00 PM tickets to the men's curling semifinals so we decide to try to get a fairly large lunch and then have something light for dinner at the curling venue. But before lunch, Steve has an errand to run. He has been texting back and forth with Yoon (the woman we met in the pizzeria several days ago) about when would be a good time to meet. She wants to give Steve some pins from her husband who works for the International Olympic Committee in Switzerland. We agree to meet just after noon in front of the big red 26 (as in 2026) that is right in front of the Olympic cauldron. After a bit, Yoon arrives with her son, who is more than happy to play in the snow while waiting for his mother. Here is a picture of the IOC pins:

along with four pins from one of the IOC sponsors. We really like the symbolism behind each of the pins. It was very kind of Yoon and her husband to go to this trouble to deliver them to Steve. We ask what her husband does for the IOC. She tells us that originally he came to Switzerland to represent Korea with the International Ice Hockey Federation but later transferred to the IOC. She tells us to please let her know if we are ever in Switzerland and that she will continue reading our blog. Another great memory to add to our Olympic experiences!

The snow had finally tapered off when it was time to head back to the curling venue. One of the security guards shows Steve that she is still wearing the pin that he gave her three days ago. We are surprised that the venue has not been completely cleared of spectators from the prior session by the time that we arrive, and they tell us that the match will be delayed about 30 minutes. It is not clear what caused the delay, but it does appear that a lot of people from the previous session went out to get dinner from the concession stands after the match.

Once we are allowed into the venue, we each get another mountain sandwich and decide this time that we will eat it indoors. It is easy to find our seats because they are exactly the same as the day before.

For the first time at this Olympics, they've got a group of pipers who bring the four semifinalist teams into the stadium. This used to happen at every curling match, but maybe the organizers decided that this showed too much favoritism to the Scots. But we think it is a nice touch.

The two matches are the #2 seed Great Britain versus the #3 seed Switzerland and the #1 seed Canada versus the #4 seed Norway. It is shocking to us how many empty seats there are for a playoff game - maybe as much as 50% of the stands are empty. The good news is that most of the fans who are here are hard core:

We are not sure what the reason for the empty seats are. Tickets are pricy - an A level ticket for this match is 100 euros. In addition, it isn't easy to get to Cortina and staying in Cortina is almost prohibitively expensive. Finally, we don't think that the Italian population knows much about curling and is therefore unwilling to spend a lot of money on tickets. If this were a soccer match, it would be another story!

Since we are mostly in the Scottish section (we are sure that there are English curling fans, but we haven't run into any!), we learn that they have a whole series of cheers taking popular songs and inserting a player's name into it. For example, for the Team GB skip, Bruce Mouat, they have taken the song from the movie Madagascar and come up with "We like to Mouat, Mouat". While the pipers who came into the stadium have left, we learn later that a Scottish supporter has managed to sneak his bagpipe into the stadium in a pram (baby carriage) and he is playing during stoppages in play halfway up one of the stairways to the upper-level seats to avoid being kicked out. We wonder if this is the same piper who was playing "Scotland the Brave" outside the venue when we left curling the other day.

Overall, the shot-making is first class. Most of the ends are really complicated with a lot of stones in play. No one led by more than 2 points at any time in the match until Great Britain forced Switzerland into a really risky shot and took 2 points to win 8-5. The Canada vs Norway match was even closer. This match went to extra ends after Norway got 2 points in the 10th to tie the score at 4 each. Canada had the hammer in the extra end and managed to get 1 point to win 5-4 setting up a Canada-Great Britain final for the gold medal. Here are some pictures from these matches:

This was our first late night in Cortina, and it was cool to see the place lighted up (the first photo is Italy house):

Now, it is time to get to bed as we have women's two-person bobsleigh tomorrow at 10 AM. Enjoy!

Milano-Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games - Olympic Day 12 (Cortina)

Our apologies. It is now February 22nd and we are in Venice getting ready to watch the closing ceremonies. Despite our best efforts to keep up with the blog, our schedule just didn't let us post in real-time. We hope that you will still find it interesting.

February 18

We made a command decision today. This morning, Steve went out to try to find someone who knew how to get from Cortina to Anterselva for biathlon on February 21st. He asked two different transportation volunteers and a person at the Cortina information center and got three different answers. We came to the conclusion that if it was this sketchy to get to Anterselva, there was a good chance that we would get stranded once we got there. So instead of Biathlon on Saturday, we are going to see the first two runs of the men's 4-man bobsleigh instead. While it is unlikely that our biathlon tickets will sell, seeing bobsleigh has the advantage of starting at 10 AM which means that we have the whole afternoon to pack instead of seeing Biathlon at 2:30 PM and then having to spend at least an hour to get back to Cortina.

Today, we are seeing curling for the 3rd day in a row - and that means seeing the stands full of people from Great Britain. Actually, to be specific, the stands are full of people from Scotland, the home of curling. We are sitting next to the wife, two children and it looks like parents of Team GB 3rd Grant Hardie. This is a good place to point out that it is not just the athletes that have to dedicate years of their lives in the pursuit of making the Olympics. Their whole families have to make these sacrifices as well, which is why so many of them are at the Olympics.

Today, we have Canada and Italy directly in front of us, Czechia vs China next to them, Switzerland vs Norway on the 3rd sheet and Great Britain vs USA on the far sheet:

Going into today's matches, Switzerland is 7-0, Canada is 6-1, Italy and Norway are 4-3, Great Britain and the USA are 4-4, China is 2-5 and Czechia is 1-6. All of the Team GB people around us are on pins and needles because they are currently middle-of-the-pack and only the top 4 teams make it to the semifinals.

While the stadium is not full, there are a lot of Italian fans present:

It seems like everyone else is happy to root against the Canadians, who have somehow become the villains due to the double-touch controversy. This must be shocking to Canada as they have a well-earned reputation for being a kind and tolerant people. To make matters worse, Canada called out Italy for inadvertently kicking a stone while sweeping one of their own and the stone was removed. The Italian fans, most of whom know nothing about curling, were incensed, thinking that those terrible Canadians had somehow cheated them. It did not get better for the Italians as the Canadians just kept making shots and both the Italian skip and his 3rd lost their cool. One threw a shoe-cover into the coach's bench and the other kicked a stone into the bumpers at the end the ice surface that it flipped over. Canada ended up winning 8-3 after Italy conceded after the 7th end.

The other matches were routs as well. Czechia beat China 10-5 in 9 ends, Switzerland beat Norway 10-4 in 8 ends and Great Britain, much to the relief of the people around us, beat the USA 9-2 in 6 ends. These were great results for Great Britain because they moved ahead of both the USA and Norway and now have a much better chance of making the semifinals. On the other hand, this was a really bad result for the USA who now have little chance of qualifying for the semifinals. Here are some pictures from today's event:

It is about 5:30 PM when we get back to the Olympic plaza and we're hungry. This has been our problem since we arrived in Italy. We tend to eat dinner around 6 PM, but Italians eat much later. In fact, most restaurants don't even open until 7 PM. This leaves us with pizzerias and trattorias, or we can eat aperitivos at bars. The bars are usually packed so we are happy to find a pizzeria. Beth is able to get a plate of raviolis and Steve has a pizza with a kind of Italian sausage and mushrooms. 

We attempted to have gelato for dessert, but the only gelatteria that we could find told us that they only sell ice cream in the summer! Outrageous! This is quite a letdown after having four gelatterias on the little street in Milano where our hotel was located - and we managed to try each one of them multiple times!

Disappointed, we head back to the room to work on the blog and catch up with the Olympic highlights. One note about watching the Olympics on Italian TV - they are just like NBC in the US. We see endless highlights of Lollobrigida winning one of her gold medals while some sports are hardly covered at all. Fortunately, the International Olympic Committee website has very good result pages - we can even follow results in real-time making it much easier to have an idea of what is going on around the Games.

Tomorrow, we are back for our final curling event: the men's semifinals. Enjoy!

Milano-Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games - Olympic Day 11 (Cortina)

February 17

We're back at the curling venue for women's competition. Coming into the venue, we see this plaque:

This lists all of the gold medal winners during the 1956 Winter Olympics held in Cortina. 32 countries (about 850 athletes) competed in four sports (skating (speed and figure), bobsleigh, ice hockey and skiing (alpine and Nordic). Note that ski jumping is counted under Nordic skiing. The opening ceremonies, ice hockey and figure skating events were held in what is now the curling venue, although at that time, it didn't have a roof. In some of the pictures in the previous blog, you can see some of the older seats that were kept from the previous Games. This was the first Winter Olympics to be televised wildly and was also the first Olympics to rely heavily on sponsors for funding.

Today we have four matches: United States vs Denmark, Italy vs Japan, Switzerland vs Korea and Canada vs Sweden. Coming into the matches, Sweden is 6-0, the USA, Switzerland and Korea are 4-2, Canada and Denmark are 3-3 and Italy and Japan are 1-5. 

When we first attended curling during the Lillehammer Olympics in 1994, we thought that any shot close to the center of the bull's eye was a great shot. But a coach from the Norwegian team explained to us that curling is a little like chess. You have to think several shots ahead in order to tell whether a shot is good or not. With that in mind, I thought today that I would try to explain some curling strategy by following the second end between Canada and Sweden which is right in front of us. Before the start of the day's competition, each team throws one stone clockwise and one stone counter-clockwise and combines the two distances from their stones to the center of the bull's eye (called the button). Canada's total distance is 42.3cm while Sweden's total is 59.8cm so Canada gets the hammer (last throw) first. In the first end, neither team scores so Canada gets to keep the hammer in the second end. This means that Sweden goes first:

The stone placed far from the house is called a guard. By putting it along the centerline, it means that you can't throw a stone right down the middle to the button. You have to go around on one side or the other. And if you are not careful, you hit the guard with your stone and get nowhere near where you want to go. Now it is Canada's turn:

Canada also throws a guard. Now the right side of the house (the bull's eye) is guarded as well. It may be that the Canadians believe that Sweden's team is stronger at throwing stones with a counter-clockwise motion than a clockwise motion, so feel it is more important to protect the right side of the house. Note that there is just enough space to squeeze a stone between the two stones, but this would be a high-risk shot:

Sweden tries to throw a stone around the red guard, but the stone curls a little too much and they end up with the back stone kind of in the middle between the guards. Throwing a stone under a guard is a way to keep the stone from immediately being knocked out because you have to go around the guard to get to the stone in the house. In this case, they didn't quite "bury" it under the guard:

Consequently, Canada takes out the red in the house and puts their own further outside. While it can also be knocked out, it may be that the Swedes will not waste a stone trying to get rid of it:

No, they decided to go ahead and get rid of the Canadian stone in the house. This time, they hit the Canadian stone head on so that the Swedish stone stayed right where it hit the Canadian stone instead of rolling in one direction or another:

Canada wants to play a complicated game and make the Swedes make tough shots so instead of again knocking the stone out of the house, they put one of their own above the Swedish stone. There is value to having stones at the top of the house like this because they can later be bumped closer to the button. Having it in front of the Swedish stone also increases the chances that it will later be bumped into the Swedish stone rather than being ejected from the house:

Sweden wants to make it harder for Canada to access the house, so they elect to throw another guard. But it curls a little too much and is too close to the other Swedish guard. Every shot is graded and this shot was rated a 0% success! On the bright side, a little more of the house is now partially protected:

Having the hammer (last throw) is valuable as it is a way to score multiple points. With this in mind, Canada elects to start putting stones in the house. They could have thrown right to the button, but they intentionally left it a little high to give themselves more flexibility later in the end:

Sweden decides to put their own stone into the house and taps the Canadian stone close to the button. While this may be bad later, having stones high in the house are more valuable right now. Further, the Canadian stone is not under cover of a guard so it can be removed later:

Canada elects to tap the Swedish stone closest to the button toward the center to make it an easier shot to get rid of later and roll their stone into the lower part of the house. Again, this was not what they were trying to do. They were trying to bump the Swedish stone back and put their stone where the Swedish stone ended up. Another 0% success shot. Good teams will try to compensate for bad shots by having a secondary goal even if they fail on their primary goal. In this case, lower stones like this one come into play for a big score if they can get rid of all of the Swedish stones in the house:

Sweden tries to freeze to their own stone in the center. The idea of a freeze is that the closer you can get to a stone, if your stone is hit, all of the momentum is transferred to the other stone which causes it to fly off while your stone stays where it is. This means that it will be very hard for Canada to get rid of the higher of those two Swedish stones in the center of the house:

This was the first really good shot in this end. Canada succeeds in taking out both of the Swedish guards and leaves their own guard a little more off the centerline. The two Swedish stones near the button are now at risk:

Sweden corrects this problem by placing another guard on the centerline. It is basically impossible for Canada to get to the button by going straight down the middle:

Canadian skip Rachel Homan makes a great draw around their guard at the top of the previous picture and puts their stone quite close to the button and partially under the two Swedish stones in the house. I missed the next picture, but Swedish skip Anna Hasselborg attempts to move the two Canadian stones off the button. Unfortunately, she hits the Canadian guard toward the top of the picture and her stone flies through the house between the button and the two stones in the house toward the bottom of the picture. This means that Canada lies two and have one stone left. They try to throw another draw to the button around the guard toward the top of the screen. This is a really tough shot, but if they see that the shot is offline, they can sweep or not sweep in such a way that it doesn't make their position any worse. As it turns off, they bang their shot off of the Canadian guard at the top of the picture and end up with 2 points. I hope that this gives you an idea of what is going on during a curling match.

In the matches, the USA makes short work of Denmark 10-3, Italy beats Japan 8-6, Switzerland beats Korea 7-5 and Canada outlasts Sweden 8-6 for Sweden's first loss. Here are some pictures from the other matches:

One our way back, we notice that the one busy street that crosses the path from the center of town to the curling stadium is being controlled by police from the Rome capital police. While his colleague on the other side of the street directs traffic, Steve hands the policeman a pin while Beth says "you have come a long way to a cold place to do this". His colleague on the other side of the street sees this and makes the sign of "please give me a pin" as we cross the street. Steve is happy to get rid of another giveaway pin and make someone happy at the same time!

Tomorrow, we are back for men's curling. Enjoy!