Trees felled, businesses dismantled:work begins on the Cortina '26 bobsleigh track

On 21 February in Cortina d'Ampezzo work began on the construction of the new flat bobsleigh track for the 2026 Olympics.Despite the very high costs, the protests of environmentalist groups, the presentation of a much more practical and sustainable alternative, the negative opinion of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), and the short timescales in which the work would have to be carried out, to say the least, on the morning of On Wednesday, the start of the day was announced by the sound of chainsaws, turned on to start the clearing by felling 500 centuries-old larches for the construction of the runway.The enormous damage caused by the construction of the circuit is not limited to the environmental issue and the natural heritage of the city, but also directly affects the inhabitants as in the case of Mirko Gardini, now former owner of the Cortina adventure park, dismantled to make room to a work that seems to have a future already written, and be destined to meet the same fate as the similar Turin route.

After months of uncertainty and back and forth, the delivery of the works for the construction of the bobsleigh track took place on February 19th.The construction of the circuit will be carried out by the Pizzarotti company of Parma and should have cost over 81 million euros, even if price estimates are increasingly upwards and now stand at around 115 million.The project involves 625 days of construction work for the construction of a 1,650 meter long route to be completed by March 2025, just in time to begin any testing.The design of the track dates back to 2019 and its construction was strongly supported by the current Minister of Infrastructure Matteo Salvini and the Governor of the Veneto Region Luca Zaia, despite the repeatedly contrary opinion of the THAT IS and the alternative put forward by the mayor of Innsbruck - which is located in Austria just 80 kilometers from Cortina - who officially proposed rent the track in your city on the occasion of the sporting event.

It was not only the city's natural heritage that ended up in the middle of the issue, but also Mirko Gardini, a 63-year-old from Cortina, owner of a now dismantled adventure park in the municipality of Cortina, who told The Independent his story.Part of Mirko's park was located on municipal land right in the middle of the track, which is why 3 months before the lease contract expired, in March 2022, he received notification that the papers would not be renewed due to the new «conditions of public interest».Gardini was not offered any real alternative to, at least partially, dismantling the park:the only solution put forward to him was in fact to move the part of the park that would have obstructed the track to a lower area, breaking the center in half, an option however unachievable in both practice and theory.Much of the equipment was in fact custom-built and in the event of dismantling, "a maximum of 20%" of the components of the structures would have been recoverable, all without considering the much more hindering legal impediment due to the safety measures, which would have come to missing in case of division of the park.

Mirko, pushed by the administration, therefore presented to the Municipality the documents certifying the value of the centre, which reached 500,000 euros, and sent an offer to sell the business at half its price, at which however no response was received.Forced to close its doors, Gardini independently took care of the dismantling of the park, for which he had to spend first-hand 30,000 euros, without obtaining any compensation, not even for the "pure disposal" of the materials that made up the structures.Mirko also ended up appealing to a lawyer, but it was of no use:according to the lawyer, in fact, «the extremes do not exist» to file a lawsuit because the contract included a clause that allowed non-renewal if the park area ended up covering public interests.The only case in which it would be possible to proceed is if the runway was not built, because in this case he could appeal for having had to close without reason.

Numerous environmental associations have moved against the route project, which in 2023, for example August and others September, as well as on the occasion of the announcement of the opening of the works this February, they gathered to protest against the felling of the larches and to protection of natural heritage.A few days ago, the demonstrators were also joined by the well-known cellist Mario Brunello, who played in protest amid the noise of chainsaws.The work on the bobsleigh track has barely begun and is already shaping up to be an all-round disaster:the mayor of Innsbruck had only proposed 15 million euros to be able to organize bobsleigh races, offering a much cheaper and more sustainable alternative to building a track from scratch;the environmental damage is immense and foreseeable the felling of an entire larch forest, in a territory already largely brought to its knees by the difficulties of climate change, which would therefore need safeguarding and protection interventions rather than further mistreatment;the times are decidedly tight, given that they were initially estimated over 800 days of construction and the construction work hasn't even started.On the other hand, concern for the fate of the track is increasingly growing, and many are wondering how much time will have to pass before it is abandoned, as happened with the Turin track built for the 2006 Olympics;as long as it is ready on time.

[by Dario Lucisano]