Olympia 2026: Heated discussion about the location of the toboggan run

A new bobsleigh track is to be built in Cortina – just “90 kilometers as the crow flies” from Igls, as NEOS club boss Dominik Oberhofer emphasized. This makes “neither economic nor ecological sense”.

Especially since the bobsleigh track in Igls will have to be renovated in 2024 anyway, as Dagmar Klingler, Innsbruck local councilor for NEOS, emphasized. The local council had already dealt with the matter in May and approved initial planning work. A government decision has already been made for investments amounting to 30 million euros. As far as the mere “maintenance” of the sports facility is concerned, the course has been “more or less set,” said the NEOS local politician. Innsbruck instead of Cortina? Klingler saw a “huge opportunity – also from a tourism perspective” in the associated possible “greening and economization” of the track into a “contemporary sports facility” – for example through the installation of PV systems, a roof and reprocessing of the ice. There is a “master plan” for this that has already “been noted” by the local council. If the system were to be trimmed for sustainability and brought up to date, this would cost an additional 20 million euros.

The bobsleigh pilots also don't yet know where the race will take place in 2026. © APA/EXPA/PETER RINDERER / EXPA/PETER RINDERER

In addition, the railway would have added value for the region “even beyond the Olympics,” Oberhofer noted. He is therefore calling on the future Tyrolean state government to “establish contact and negotiations with the Olympic Committee”. The NEOS state spokesman announced that this would be his first (urgent) application in the new state parliament period. He expects that this will happen in November and that the state parliament will be constituted on October 25th. A state election took place in the Austrian state of Tyrol on September 25th, and the ÖVP is currently in coalition negotiations with the SPÖ. In any case, time is running out in the Igls bobsleigh track case, Oberhofer put his foot on the political accelerator and we now have to “take massive action”. Criticism from the South Tyrolean opposition In addition to Oberhofer and Klingler, the South Tyrolean state parliament members of Team K - also liberal, opposition - Paul Köllensperger and Alex Ploner also had their say. They were particularly offended by the fact that South Tyrolean tax money could flow not only into the construction, but later also into the maintenance of the bobsleigh track in Cortina d'Ampezzo. And the fact that this could potentially become a “cathedral in the desert” is a “niche sport”.

List founder Köllensperger took the South Tyrolean governor Arno Kompatscher (SVP) to task. The financing of the planned bobsleigh track in Cortina, for which 85 million euros were estimated, is “opaque”. No request from the IOC yet Oberhofer took the same line and emphasized several times that sustainability also meant “using existing structures”. In the proposal, which the two parties now also want to submit to the International Olympic Committee (IOC), Oberhofer saw the NEOS premise of combining business and the environment realized. In addition, the last Winter Games in China showed that “always higher, ever bigger” is no longer appropriate. This initiative is also an example of “practical solutions in the European region” and a “win-win for all sides,” concluded Oberhofer.

So far, “to our knowledge, there has been no formal request from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to the Austrian Olympic Committee (ÖOC), said State Sports Councilor LHStv. Josef Geisler (ÖVP) with.

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Olympia 2026: Heated discussion about the location of the toboggan run

In a press conference on Tuesday, the North Tyrolean NEOS and the South Tyrolean Team K mentioned the bobsleigh track in Igls near Innsbruck as a venue for the bobsleigh, luge and skeleton competitions as part of the 2026 Olympic Games. These take place in Milan and Cortina.

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