With the next Summer Olympics less than 2 1/2 years away, state legislative leaders this week reflected on the 1984 Games the last time Los Angeles hosted the global sporting event as they seek out ideas and inspiration to make the 2028 Games just as, if not more, successful.
I think we're on track to successfully host the World Cup. And we're really proud about all of the preparations here and we're looking forward to showcasing the city and the province and Canada on the global stage.
Some of the world's greatest winter sports athletes have called on the International Olympics Committee to stop taking fossil fuel industry money, including from Italian oil giant ENI, a "Premium Partner" of the 2026 Winter Olympics. "The time has come to question the ethical implications of...normalizing the connections between our sports and the detrimental effects of the product that [fossil fuel companies] sell," reads a petition delivered yesterday to IOC officials in Milan, Italy, where the Games' opening ceremony takes place on Friday.
"We have a golden retriever, and so I walk her three or four miles a day, and I do a weight training class twice a week," says Brown, 62, of Arlington, Va. She knows muscle mass will decline without regular strength training. "We have a fun group with a personal trainer and we call ourselves the Beastie Girls," she says, describing how her group helps her stick with it. She also plays tennis and golf.
Over the course of the twelve-year gap between Olympic appearances, the NHL has drastically evolved. Most of the legendary trios of the 2010's, namely Drew Doughty-Dustin Brown-Anze Kopitar of the Los Angeles Kings and Duncan Keith-Patrick Kane-Jonathan Toews of the Chicago Blackhawks, have drifted apart in some form. Superstars Connor McDavid and Auston Matthews, in addition to future stars Macklin Celebrini and Connor Bedard, got drafted into the league.
On the foothills of the mountains, by the banks of the river in Cortina, there was a forest. It was full of tall larch trees. Arborists said the oldest of them had been there for 150 years and dendrologists that it was unique because it was unusual to find a monocultural forest growing at such a low altitude in the southern Alps.
The period between the 2022 Olympics and the 2026 Olympics might have been some of the best years yet for the Japanese women's hockey team. In 2022, the team secured a fifth-place finish at the IIHF Women's World Championship. Three years later, Japan would win gold at both the Asian Winter Games and the IIHF Asian Championship. And just recently, the Japanese women's hockey team won gold at the second edition of the IIHF Asian Championship.
The build up to the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan and Cortina have been far from ideal. The ice rink has been delayed and riddled with issues. The bobsleigh track has been controversial from the start. History shows that many Winter Olympic hosts have also been plagued by late construction completions and rising costs, but perhaps 2026 represents a tipping point.
But there's also the matter of making sure one's equipment is up to snuff - and, beginning with this year's Winter Olympics, that means not having any PFAS, or "forever chemicals," in the mix. What happens if a competitor does turn out to have such chemicals in their equipment? They'll find themselves disqualified. As GearJunkie's Mary Andino reports, three skiiers have been disqualified so far due to their use of fluorocarbon wax, also known as "fluoro wax."
The Milano Cortina Winter Olympics are the most geographically spread out Winter Games in history, unfolding across 8,500 square miles of Northern Italy and the Dolomites. Rather than concentrating in a single host city, the competitions weave through alpine valleys, lakeside towns, the urban heartbeats of Verona and Milan, and some of the most breathtaking and iconic ski and snowboard terrains in the world. The 15 official Olympic venues are scattered across seven clusters. Instead of one Olympic Village, there are six.
And the Olympics have not yet officially begun. Hundreds of demonstrators gathered in Milan's Piazza XXV Aprile, named for the day Italy was liberated from Nazi fascism in 1945, to protest against the planned deployment of ICE agents during the Games. The ICE agents to be deployed to Milan are not from the same unit as the immigration agents cracking down in Minneapolis and other US cities.