BEIJING — Wearing dark blue jackets and moving in packs, the observers from Milano Cortina 2026 are omnipresent at the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games, studying operations and soaking up atmosphere.
There are 40 representatives from the future host city as part of the International Olympic Committee’'s Information, Knowledge and Games Learning program.
“It’s one thing to see the Olympic Games from outside, from the other side of the river, if you want,” Andrea Monti, Communications Director for Milano Cortina 2026 and a former journalist, told Around the Rings, “and a whole different thing is to be inside and see what’s behind the scenes.”
The IOC foots the bill for observers, with representatives also from Paris 2024, Brisbane 2032 and Gangwon 2024 Youth Olympic Games.
“What has impressed me the most is the complexity and how huge this machine is,” Monti said, “and how the IOC and BOCOG are managing this complexity.”
He said Milano Cortina sent representatives from any functional area of Milano-Cortina 2026. “Of course, the team has been reduced according to the situation,” he said. “But I think that everybody ended up watching, observing, taking notes on what was needed in Beijing.”
Monti was a “close contact” to someone who tested positive for COVID-19 and only recently released from an isolation hotel. So he saw a side to the Winter Games that most visitors, luckily, did not experience.
While he expects the Milano Cortina 2026 Games to be much different — with the pandemic hopefully in the past — Monti said, “What I learned here is to deal with an emergency and to make an emergency into something normal and manageable.”
He has also witnessed how Beijing 2022 has dealt with a minor emergency — the scarcity of mascot Bing Dwen Dwen, who was out of stock and only recently returned to the shelves.
Monti said Milano Cortina has gotten a head start on designing its mascot.
“We started compared to what the master schedule suggests because we want this mascot to be designed by kids,” he said.
He said the process started a few days ago in all elementary and secondary schools, with classrooms tasked at coming up with ideas for a mascot. Milano Cortina 2026 will then select two two projects.
“Next year, in due course on a very big television show, we will submit to the public two different mascots and they will be able to choose which one,” Monti said. “Then the mascot will go into production.”
The world will be introduced to the northern Italian region at the Closing Ceremony with the handover ceremony and a presentation.
“I have to be very careful about hints because we have an embargo on that,” Monti said. “I can tell you one thing: that Milano and Cortina, these are spread out Games. They encompass different realities — the reality of a big city like Milan, dynamic, time consuming, energy consuming, and the essence of a world-famous mountain place like Cortina. So it’s basically duality. Two things that are different, but go together and they’re stronger together because they united energies. That is going to be the gist of the handover ceremony.
“Something very good and beautiful is going to happen at the Bird’s Nest.”
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