Emerging links between Alpine landscape heritage and mega-events in the Milan-Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics

The upcoming Milan-Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics represents a new approach to hosting the Olympic Games as it will be the first ever to be shared by two separate cities, several hundreds of kilometers from one another. While the bidding dossier does recognize the potential impact on built heritage, from the Piazza Duomo in Milan to the ancient Roman Arena in Verona, it largely frames heritage issues in relation to promoting sustainability and tourism assets. In this way the dossier maintains a limited understanding of both local and especially landscape heritage meanings and values that risks reducing heritage to becoming a mere backdrop for the 2026 Olympics. This paper represents an initial investigation into the possible links between Alpine landscape heritage and mega-events, reflecting upon the possible issues that may arise in the case of the Milan-Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games as planned in the bidding dossier.