The Countdown is on: Saalbach 2025 & Milan-Cortina 2026 celebrate milestone dates

Excitement is quickly ramping up in Saalbach, Austria, and Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy, with both globally renowned Alpine skiing hubs holding celebrations in recent days ahead of two of the sport’s most eagerly anticipated dates.

For Saalbach, 4 February marked one-year-to-go until the very best go head-to-head at the 2025 FIS Alpine World Ski Championships while less than 200km south in Cortina, the good and the great gathered on Tuesday 6 February to kick-off the two-year countdown until the opening ceremony of Milan-Cortina 2026 Olympic Winter Games.

Full speed ahead towards Saalbach 2025

Roughly a three-hour drive north of Cortina, the resort of Saalbach, in the Austrian state of Salzburg, will once again welcome the world’s premier ski racers, 34 years after hosting the memorable 1991 World Championships.

The action, scheduled to take place 4-16 February 2025, is expected to ignite great enthusiasm for skiing and winter sports, while creating lasting inspiration for the next generation of skiers across the region.

Saalbach 2025 president Bartl Gensbichler cannot wait.

“I think we are already well-positioned if you take the whole world championship team now – in some areas we are getting further and further along and I’m really looking forward to the next 365 days,” Gensbichler said.

For the convenience of spectators, all men’s and women’s races will be contested on Saalbach’s famous 12er KOGEL piste and concluding in one finish stadium. The women’s racing piste is named Ulli Maier, honouring the Austrian two-time world champion from Salzburg, who died in a crash in January 1994, and the men’s slope is named Schneekristall

The Austrian also touted the two downhill tracks.

“We now know that the men’s downhill run is one of the most difficult in the world and I think the women’s run is tried-and-tested in the past in the upper part, but I think it’s underestimated from the start to the finish with beautiful jumps and difficult curves, but yet it is not dangerous,” said the Saalbach 2025 leader.

The 1991 World Championships – at which racers from 39 countries participated – certainly proved successful for the home nation. Stefan Eberharter triumphed in both the super-G and the Alpine combined becoming a double world champion. While Petra Kronberger lived up to lofty expectations and won the women’s downhill.

Check out all the very latest information right here.

Saalbach is also looking forward – now just over one month away – to awarding large and small crystal globes when it hosts the season-ending Audi FIS World Cup Finals, 16-24 March.

Competition kicks off with the women’s slalom and men’s giant slalom on 16 March, with the world’s eyes on the finale of the 2024 ski season. Do not miss a moment.

Olympic rings light up Cortina d’Ampezzo

Over in Cortina, the festivities on Tuesday evening kicked off with a torchlight parade of local skiers descending Col Drusciè, the women’s 2026 Olympic slalom piste. Followed by the lighting of Olympic Rings on the mountain, all visible from the centre of town below.

Cortina d’Ampezzo mayor Gianluca Lorenzi hosted the party, expressing great enthusiasm and a little bit of nervousness, at the prospect of welcoming the world’s premier female ski racers and winter sports athletes.

“It will be amazing because in just two years we will be here along with the Olympic athletes and it will all be like a dream,” said Lorenzi. “There is already so much emotion here getting ready for Olympic Games.

“The feeling is amazing, but it is not so easy to comprehend what the Olympics will be like in Cortina, once again after 70 years.”

Cortina d’Ampezzo previously hosted the VII Winter Games in 1956.

“We will have about 1,200 athletes here and I hope after they return home it will be a dream for their whole life,” the Cortina mayor said.

Three-time Olympic medallist and 2020 overall World Cup champion Federica Brignone is thrilled about her country once again welcoming the world at the XXV Olympic Winter Games.

“I think it will be really important, just amazing, for our nation to have the Olympic Games once again,” Brignone said. “If you participate as an athlete, you will be part of the show.

“Our sport has changed a lot since 1956 and Milano-Cortina 2026 is going to be really nice,” the Italian three-time Olympic medal winner said. “The Olympic and winter spirit will really shine.”

All the men's Alpine ski races will be contested in Bormio.

Meanwhile, in Milan, host to a multitude of ice sports during the 2026 Games, the Olympic Rings and Paralympic Agitos were unveiled in Piazza della Scala.