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[스포츠뉴스]Decentralized Winter Games hosting great in theory but a transportation nightmare in practice

온카뱅크관리자

2026-02-09 15:35:00

<div class="ab_photo photo_center ab_zoom">  <div class="image">   <span class="end_photo_org"><img src="https://imgnews.pstatic.net/image/640/2026/02/09/0000084190_001_20260209153615613.jpg" alt="" /><em class="img_desc">Officials and reporters from various countries are seen waiting for a bus to Livigno at the Bormio platform in Bormio, Italy on Feb. 7. [KO BONG-JUN]</em></span>   <span class="mask"></span>  </div>  </div>    <br> MILAN &#8212; A quiet bus stop in a rural village near Bormio, a small town in northern Italy, turned into a jumble of languages at 2 p.m. on Saturday. Italian, English, Chinese and Korean spilled into the cold air, all voicing the same complaint &#8212; frustration about at a bus that never seemed to arrive.  <br>    <br> The road to Livigno, where snowboard events for the 2026 Milan&#8211;Cortina d’Ampezzo Winter Olympics will take place, tested the limits of patience.  <br><br>Setting out with bravado and determination to visit every Olympic venue sounded admirable at first. Experiencing it firsthand, however, turned into a journey that would be difficult to recommend to anyone.  <br>    <br> Starting from Milan, the total round-trip distance to Cortina d’Ampezzo and Livigno came to 13,000 kilometers (808 miles), which comes to a full 23 hours spent on the road.  <br>    <br> Living through the event’s lofty-sounding motto &#8212; decentralized hosting &#8212; left only stinging eyes, bone-deep exhaustion and muscles locked tight with fatigue.  <br>    <br> It felt as if not just the Olympic venues but body and spirit had been scattered. After a week of shuttling between cities, one reality became clear: The three regions are simply too far apart and too different to be bound under a single name.  <br>    <br> The ordeal began even before the opening, on Feb. 2, with the trip to Cortina d’Ampezzo. After arriving in Milan on the evening of Feb. 1, the schedule allowed little rest before setting out again at 6 a.m. the next morning.  <br>    <br> <div class="ab_photo photo_center ab_zoom">  <div class="image">   <span class="end_photo_org"><img src="https://imgnews.pstatic.net/image/640/2026/02/09/0000084190_002_20260209153615909.jpg" alt="" /><em class="img_desc">Crowds stream past a halted green regional train as platform screens announce changes caused by a Trenord strike at Milano Centrale station in Milan, Italy, on Feb. 2. [REUTERS/YONHAP] </em></span>   <span class="mask"></span>  </div>  </div>    <br> With Italy being unfamiliar territory and distances dauntingly long, tension set in early. Because the Games had yet to open, the organizing committee’s official application proved useless. Navigation depended entirely on Google Maps, with buses and trains taken in succession amid Italy’s complex traffic conditions.  <br>    <br> The trip to Livigno on Saturday to cover snowboarder Lee Sang-ho’s competition scheduled for Sunday was even more grueling. From Milan Central Station, it was a two-and-a-half-hour train ride to Tirano, then one hour by bus to Bormio followed by yet another bus to Livigno.  <br>    <br> The wait at the Bormio platform proved the most punishing. A bus that was promised to arrive in 20 to 30 minutes never appeared, leaving passengers stranded in a mountain area where subzero winds cut sharply through the air.  <br>    <br> Influenced by Milan’s mild weather, the choice of light clothing turned into a huge mistake. After enduring a full hour in the cold, the relief of boarding the bus to Livigno finally became possible.  <br>    <br> <div class="ab_photo photo_center ab_zoom">  <div class="image">   <span class="end_photo_org"><img src="https://imgnews.pstatic.net/image/640/2026/02/09/0000084190_003_20260209153616122.jpg" alt="" /><em class="img_desc">Officials and reporters from several countries are seen waiting for a bus to Livigno at the Bormio platform in Bormio, Italy on Feb. 7. [KO BONG-JUN]</em></span>   <span class="mask"></span>  </div>  </div>    <br> This Olympics openly embraces decentralized hosting, with cost-cutting as its primary goal.  <br>    <br> Foreign media estimate the budget at about 9 trillion won ($6.14 billion), a sharp drop from 12 trillion won for the Paris Olympics two years earlier and 14 trillion won for the PyeongChang Games in 2018. Only an ice hockey arena and a sliding center were newly built for this event.  <br>    <br> Balanced regional development was also a consideration, since hosting the Olympics solely in major cities denies smaller regions the economic windfall.  <br>    <br> The Beijing Games four years ago held snow events in Zhangjiakou, beyond the Great Wall, and the PyeongChang Games in 2018 were co-hosted with Gangneung, but neither placed multiple cities side by side in the official event name as the Milan-Cortina d’Ampezzo Games have.  <br>    <br> After a week of moving between Cortina d’Ampezzo and Livigno, the logic behind the hyphen became clear: Each city operates in a different world, and the distances between them are simply too great to be encompassed by the single name of Milan.  <br>    <br> <div class="ab_photo photo_center ab_zoom">  <div class="image">   <span class="end_photo_org"><img src="https://imgnews.pstatic.net/image/640/2026/02/09/0000084190_004_20260209153616255.jpg" alt="" /><em class="img_desc">A view of the Livigno Snowboarding Stadium in Livigno, Italy on Feb. 7. [KO BONG-JUN]</em></span>   <span class="mask"></span>  </div>  </div>    <br> For instance, traveling from Cortina d’Ampezzo to Livigno by public transportation takes a staggering 18 hours.  <br>    <br> That reality made painfully clear why foreign media have dubbed The Games a “transportation nightmare” &#8212; and joked that Uber may be the biggest winner.  <br>    <br> As The New York Times observed, for spectators this itinerary is less like attending an Olympics and more like traversing a country on cross-country skis.  <br>    <br> If even accredited journalists struggle through such journeys, how punishing must it be for spectators who have no choice but to rely on public transport? In chasing the ideal of sustainability, the question arises whether practical accessibility has been sacrificed.  <br>    <br> The International Olympic Committee (IOC) also appears to be grappling with the mixed lessons of decentralized hosting.  <br>    <br> <div class="ab_photo photo_center ab_zoom">  <div class="image">   <span class="end_photo_org"><img src="https://imgnews.pstatic.net/image/640/2026/02/09/0000084190_005_20260209153616369.jpg" alt="" /><em class="img_desc">A view of the Tirano bus station in Tirano, Italy, a must-stop to get to Livigno, where the snowboarding competitions of the Milan-Cortina Olympics are taking place, on Feb. 7. [KO BONG-JUN]</em></span>   <span class="mask"></span>  </div>  </div>    <br> “Finding the right balance between tradition and innovation, between stability and flexibility [means] we have to look at our sports, disciplines and events with fresh eyes,” said IOC President Kirsty Coventry.  <br>    <br> A 12-hour round trip from Milan to Cortina d’Ampezzo was followed by an 11-hour round trip from Milan to Livigno. At the end of this punishing route, what offered consolation was the view outside the window.  <br>    <br> Ironically, the rugged landscapes of northern Italy that caused such hardship proved so overwhelmingly beautiful that they erased the memory of suffering.  <br>    <br> The snow-covered Alpine peaks seen from the bus to Cortina d’Ampezzo held attention for an hour straight, while Lake Como, glimpsed on the way to Tirano, shimmered like a blue jewel set among the Alps. Thanks to these scenes, even the most punishing exhaustion could be remembered as a strangely luxurious assignment.  <br><br><i>This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.</i>

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