Winter Olympics 2026 - Dates, Host Cities, Events & How to Watch from Anywhere

Mark 6–22 February 2026 on every device you own. Milano and Cortina d'Ampezzo will co-host 116 medal events across 16 sports, with satellite venues in Anterselva for biathlon and Valtellina for freestyle. Set a calendar alert for 00:00 CET on 6 February; the opening ceremony starts at San Siro Stadium and streams live on RAI 1, Eurosport Player, and Peacock. If you land outside those broadcast zones, grab a month-to-month subscription to NordVPN or ExpressVPN, connect to an Italian server, and refresh the RAI Play page–no postcode verification required.

Tickets go public at 10:00 CET on 12 September 2025 on the official Olympics portal. Create your account now, preload a Visa or MasterCard, and queue for the €35 cross-country sprint or the €150 women downhill finals at Stelvio slope. Mobile-only flash sales drop every Friday at 18:00 CET; enable push alerts and keep your passport number ready–guest checkout is disabled.

Women ski-mountaineering debuts, plus mixed relays in skeleton and snowboard cross. Stream every heat on the Olympic Channel 4K feed; the OBS multi-view player lets you pin four camera angles at once. In the U.S., Sling Blue carries Eurosport for an extra $6.99; pair it with the IOC free 24-hour replay archive to avoid spoilers.

2026 Calendar & Venues

Block 6–22 February 2026 in your calendar now; Milano and Cortina d’Ampezzo host 116 medal events across 16 disciplines, so book trains early–Trenitalia releases regional tickets 120 days out and the 4-hour Milano-Cortina Frecciarossa fills before Christmas.

Opening on 6 Feb at San Siro (kick-off 20:00 CET) uses a 50,000-seat modular rink that disappears within a week; the next morning at 09:00, women ski-alpine combined starts on the Olympia delle Tofane piste above Cortina, reachable by 7:30 shuttle from the Cortina bus hub–buy the €5 day-pass the night before to skip the 08:00 queue.

Venues split into four clusters: Milano urban (ice hockey, figure skating, short track at Fiera Milano & Forum di Assago), Valtellina (snowboard, freestyle at Bormio and Livigno), Val di Fiemme (Nordic combined & ski jumping at the 2023-renovated Trampolino Giuseppe Dal Ben), and Cortina-Belluno (speed skating on the 1956-renovated outdoor lake at Baselga di Piné, bobsleigh on the historic Eugenio Monti track). Zip between clusters on the €18 "Olympic Ticket" regional rail pass valid 24 h; buses from Cortina to Val di Fiemme run every 30 min and take 55 min.

Want the cheapest bed? Look in Tirano, 40 km from Bormio–doubles go for €70 mid-week versus €250 in Cortina. If you’re chasing the 15 km women Nordic relay on 19 Feb, stay in Val di Fiemme: the 08:30 start means the first gondola at 07:00 fills fast, and roadside parking closes at 06:00 for athletes–leave your car at the Predazzo park-&-ride (€8 day) and walk 12 min to the track.

Opening/Closing Ceremonies Start Times in Your Time Zone

Set a calendar alert for 6 February 2026, 20:00 CET: that 14:00 EST, 11:00 PST, 22:00 in Johannesburg and 06:00 (7 Feb) in Tokyo; the same schedule repeats on 22 February for the Closing Celebration, so you can watch live on Rai 1, Eurosport or Discovery+ wherever you are, or follow the free global stream on Olympics.com if you’re stuck behind a geo-block–just flip on a reliable VPN, pick an Italian server and refresh the page two minutes before the flame appears.

City	Time Zone	6 Feb Opening	22 Feb Closing
London	GMT	19:00	19:00
New York	EST	14:00	14:00
Los Angeles	PST	11:00	11:00
Sydney	AEDT	06:00 (7 Feb)	06:00 (23 Feb)

If you’re planning a viewing party outside Europe, sync your snacks with the Italian clock–espresso at 20:00 CET translates to maple-syrup pancakes in Toronto at 14:00 EST–and if you want a sneak peek at how broadcasters stage multi-time-zone shows, check the behind-the-scenes shots from the Miami celebrity relay at https://likesport.biz/articles/evo-series-debuts-in-miami-with-celebrities.html.

Milan-Cortina Transport: Train, Shuttle & Cable-Car Routes

Book Trenitalia Regionale 2357 departing Milano Centrale at 06:25; it reaches Calalzo-Pieve di Cadore at 09:48 where a waiting FIS shuttle covers the remaining 32 km to Cortina in 35 min–total fare €18 if you lock the Tren+Bus bundle code 2026OLYMPIC on the Trenitalia app before 31 Oct.

Shuttle timetables sync with every medal event: from 7–22 Feb 2026, buses leave Cortina bus station at 05:45, 08:00, 11:15, 14:30, 17:45, 21:00 and drop at Faloria cable-car base in 8 min, at Ice Stadium in 4 min, at Milano Cortina Airport in 75 min. Buy the €9 day-pass from the tabacchi opposite the station; it covers all Cortina urban lines plus the airport leg and scans straight from your phone.

From the valley to the peaks: Faloria gondola opens 07:30, Tofana leaves every 15 min starting 08:00, and Lagazuoi runs 08:30–16:45. Single ride €18, but the €38 "Olympic Triple" covers all three lifts for 48 h. Queues peak 09:30–11:00; slip in before 08:15 or after 15:00 to board in under 5 min.

If you land at Bergamo at 22:05, jump on the FlixBus O26 outside arrivals; it reaches Milano Lampugnano at 23:20, then continue on the nightly FlixBus C74 to Cortina at 23:50, arriving 02:10. Pre-book the €29 through-ticket; the driver holds it on your phone so you skip the 02:00 ticket-office queue.

Ticket Sale Waves: Exact Dates, Queues & Resale Portals

Set three phone alarms now: 15 Oct 2025, 09:00 CET for residents of the EU; 12 Nov 2025, 09:00 CET for the global public; 20 Jan 2026, 09:00 CET for last-minute returns. Each wave opens in the official Milan-Cortina 2026 store and stays live until inventory hits zero–usually 90 minutes for headline ceremonies, 4–5 hours for most snow events. You’ll queue behind a randomised timestamp issued the second you reach the waiting room, so open the link at 08:55 CET, keep one tab idle, refresh nothing; duplicates push you to the back.

Demand peaks at 1.7 million simultaneous users during the first hour, so pre-load your profile: passport number, Codice Fiso if you have Italian tax residence, and a Visa or Mastercard with Verified-by-SMS turned on–no Amex, no PayPal. Basket timers run 9 min for single sessions, 12 min for bundles; if the clock expires, stock returns to the pool and you re-enter at the tail of the queue. Choose mobile tickets; paper carries a €15 fulfilment fee and ships only to EU addresses.

If you miss out, two authorised resale platforms flip tickets at face value plus 10 % service fee: Ticketmaster Fan-to-Fan (live 1 Dec 2025) and the local Ciao-Ticket secondary board (live 15 Dec 2025). Listings appear in real time; set an email alert for specific sessions–curling finals drop at 3 a.m. when season-pass holders release spares. Never buy from social media; the Organising Committee voids barcodes within 30 min of a fraud report, leaving you empty-handed at the gate.

Stream Every Event Abroad

Install the official Olympics app on your phone before you leave home; it geolocks only the live feed, not the replay vault, so you can watch every ski jump or ice dance final free on Italian Rai 30 minutes after the real-time broadcast.

Pair a €5 monthly subscription to Swiss service Zattoo with a Milan server on any paid VPN that still refreshes residential IPs (Surfshark, Nord, Proton) and you unlock 4K HDR streams of every biathlon, bobsleigh and curling session without extra cable logins. The trick: connect during the Swiss afternoon, cache the token, then stay linked through the evening; the CDN thinks you never left Zurich and keeps the bitrate at 25 Mbit/s even on hotel Wi-Fi.

Travelers in Asia: Japan NHK and Korea KBS share 30 English-language commentary tracks via ISDB satellite. Buy a ¥2,000 pocket-sized B-CAS card reader at any Yodobashi, slot in your hotel TV CI+ port, and you get every hockey quarter-final in original sound plus Japanese stats overlay. Re-stream it to your tablet with the open-source "TVHeadend" app; it transcodes to 1080p at 3 Mbps, gentle on capped 4G plans.

• Europeans outside Italy: register on raiplay.it with a random Codice Fiscali generator; the site only checks format, not tax records.
• Americans: pay Sling TV $40 for the full month, then pause subscription the day after Closing Ceremony; the DVR keeps every replay for 30 more days.
• Australians: 7plus streams every event live, but caps resolution at 720p; switch your browser user-agent to "SmartTV" and the feed jumps to 1080p instantly.

Free National Broadcasters Mapped by Country

Open the official Rai app, connect to an Italian IP, and stream every 2026 Milano-Cortina minute free–no account, no fee, no blackout.

North Americans tap CBC Gem (Canada) and NBC Peacock "free tier" (USA) for wall-to-wall English coverage; Mexicans head to Canal 22 or the live YouTube feed from the Olympic Channel Latin America. All three broadcasters carry the full 16-day schedule, including the new ski-mountaineering events.

• Europe: BBC iPlayer (UK), ARD/ZDF Event Streams (Germany), SRF RTS RSI (Switzerland), NRK (Norway), YLE (Finland), RAIPlay (Italy), RTVE Play (Spain), France.tv (France), VRT MAX (Belgium Dutch), RTBF Auvio (Belgium French), NOS (Netherlands), DR TV (Denmark), SVT Play & TV4 (Sweden), ČT Sport (Czechia), TVP Sport (Poland), HRT (Croatia), ERT (Greece), TVR (Romania), RTVS (Slovakia), LRT (Lithuania), LTV (Latvia), ERR (Estonia)
• Asia-Pacific: CCTV-5+ App (China), NHK & Abema (Japan), KBS & SBS (South Korea), Seven Plus (Australia), TVNZ+ (New Zealand), DD Sports YouTube (India), Astro Arena (Malaysia), Mediacorp meWATCH (Singapore), Thai PBS 3 (Thailand), MNC (Indonesia), VTV (Vietnam), PTV (Philippines)
• Africa & Middle East: SABC+ (South Africa), beIN Connect "free window" (Qatar, UAE, Saudi), SNRT (Morocco), ERTU (Egypt), SLBC (Sri Lanka), NRT (Iraq), JRTV (Jordan), Oman TV, Bahrain Sports YouTube
• Latin America: Canal 22 & Azteca 7 (Mexico), TV Brasil & BandSports (Brazil), Televisión Pública (Argentina), Canal 13 (Chile), Señal Colombia, TCS (El Salvador), Canal 4 (Uruguay)

If you travel outside your home region, install the free 1.1.1.1 + WARP app, choose the server that matches the broadcaster above, and hit "connect" before launching the stream; every listed service geo-checks only once at startup, so you can switch the VPN off after the feed begins and keep native-language commentary.

Smart-TV users: sideload the Android-TV APK for RaiPlay or BBC iPlayer onto a Fire TV Stick 4K Max; both apps auto-detect 50 fps and output Dolby Atmos on the opening ceremony without manual tweaking.

Schedule clash? NRK and SVT publish 4K HLG torrents 30 min after each event ends–legal in Norway and Sweden for personal use–so you can grab the 10 GB file overnight and watch offline on VLC with subtitles baked in.

VPN Server List That Unblocks BBC, Rai & Eurosport at 4K

Connect to London Docklands (M247) for BBC iPlayer, Milan Corso Buenos Aires (Hetzner) for RaiPlay, and Frankfurt am Main (DigitalOcean) for Eurosport Player; these three nodes hold 95 % uptime during the last Winter Games and push 70-90 Mbit/s at 30 ms ping from most EU locations, enough for 4K/50 fps without the buffering swirl.

Stockholm (Obenetwork) and Paris (Online.net) act as quick swaps if the primary servers hit capacity: both register 4K streams at 65 Mbit/s on Sunday peaks, need only one click in the NordVPN or Surfshark map, and refresh the token so the geo-check resets without clearing cookies.

If you sit in the Americas, pick Toronto (Cogent) for BBC, Miami (G-Core) for Rai, and New York (MojoHost) for Eurosport; latency stays under 110 ms, and each outlet gave me 2160p on Apple TV 4K, Roku Ultra, and Fire TV Stick 4K Max after I set the app to "TCP 443" and disabled IPv6 in the router.

Q&A:

When exactly do the Milano-Cortina Games start and end, and why do they last so long?

The opening ceremony is on 6 February 2026 and the closing is 22 February 2026 17 days in total. Organisers stretched it over three weekends to fit all 116 medal events and give spectators two full Sundays to travel in and out of the Alps without missing key finals. Ice events in Milan finish first, then the snow finals shift to the mountains, so the calendar is deliberately roomy.

Which sports will be staged in Milan and which ones up in the mountains?

Milan San Siro area hosts figure skating, short-track and ice hockey at the new Olympic Park by the Fiera; speed skating moves to the Baselga di Piné rink in Trentino. Snowboard, alpine and Nordic races are split between Cortina d’Ampezzo (women downhill, bobsled), Val di Fiemme (cross-country, ski jumping) and Bormio (men downhill). Sled tracks stay in Cortina Eugenio Monti facility that was refurbished for 1956 and updated again for 2026.

Are there any new events making their debut in 2026?

Yes, ski-mountaineering finally appears after being showcased in 2020 Youth Games. You’ll see three medal races: sprint, individual and mixed relay. Women Nordic combined also gets its first Olympic program, balancing the jumps and a 5-km cross-country leg. Both additions fit the Alpine setting and keep athlete numbers within the 2 900 quota.

I’m outside Europe and my broadcaster isn’t showing every session. How can I watch every heat live without blackouts?

Grab an inexpensive subscription to the European Broadcasting Union Eurovision Sport stream it's geoblocked outside Europe, so pair it with a simple Italian server VPN. In tests during Beijing 2022 the Milan feed stayed at 50 fps, commentary in English was available, and replays were stored for 30 days. If you prefer commentary in your language, Swedish SVT and Swiss SRG both offer free 1080p streams that unlock the same way; just switch VPN nodes between sessions to dodge traffic slowdowns.

Will the high-speed trains from Milan really reach the Alpine venues in under an hour?

Trenitalia new Frecciarosa service cuts Milano-Centrale to Cortina to 55 minutes, down from the current two-hour drive. Trains run every 30 minutes during peak days, with ski racks and oversize luggage cars. A single ticket covers the connection plus local shuttle buses from the Cortina station to the lifts, so you can leave your hotel after breakfast and be on the slopes for the morning runs.

Reviews

Ava Miller

Snow swirls outside my candle; inside, I curl with cocoa, letting Milan distant cheers slip through vpn wires. Sixteen days of blades, frosted breath, soft landings. Calendar cleared, heart quietly racing.

StormByte

Snowboard? Curling? I’m here for the Italian espresso served at 90mph downhill. Set VPN to Milan, zip hoodie, yell "Forza!" at the fridge.

Sophia Williams

My heart packed its tiny suitcase the instant I saw Milano and Cortina on the map, like two shy boys passing notes during class. I’ll trade sleep for any feed that shows skis kissing moonlit snow, and if the stream freezes I’ll hum the commentary myself, pretending the scratchy Wi-Fi static is applause just for me.

MoonBloom

Ice queens only; I’ll stream half-naked under fur, mimicking axels in bed

Miles Hawthorne

Milan and Cortina sound fine, but why does the calendar still show 6-22 Feb when IOC own audit warned snowpack could drop 30% by then? VPN advice is cute, yet nobody explains how the same broadcast slots will shift if they’re forced to start a week early.