Vue lecture

Dolomites diary: lederhosen, late buses and the anatomy of an Olympic ski jumper

13 février 2026 à 14:35

Covering the first week of events at Milano Cortina 2026 has been enlightening but not straightforward

It’s a seven-hour trip from one end of the opening ceremony to the other. I leave Milan at midday and arrive in Cortina just as the athletes are making their parade around the town square. Cortina’s a one-street town, and it’s been closed down, but everyone’s hanging off the balconies. I see three men in lederhosen, five in identical Wayne Gretzky jerseys, and more people than I can count in luxurious furs. The first person I talk to is a member of the Qatari police force, who is working here as part of a security agreement between the two countries. This is the sixth Olympics I’ve worked on, but the others all took place in summer. I’m pleased to see he looks even more out of place than me.

Team GB’s Matt Weston leads golden charge as skeleton rivals unite behind banned Ukrainian

The Guardian

Par :Andy Bull in Cortina

12 février 2026 à 14:39

British racer poised for podium after opening rounds
Sledder turned in back-to-back Cortina track records

This was the race that will always be remembered for the one man who didn’t make the start. Exactly 21 minutes before the men’s skeleton was scheduled to begin the International Olympic Committee put out its press release announcing that it had revoked the Olympic accreditation of the Ukrainian slider Vladyslav Heraskevych after he refused to compete without his helmet decorated with the images of his fellow athletes who have been killed during the Russian invasion of his country. It was so late the two British competitors, Matt Weston and Marcus Wyatt said they didn’t even find out about it until after they had finished.

By then, the news had already spread around the world, and the one Ukrainian journalist present, Stanislav Oroshkevych, from tribuna.com, found he was suddenly surrounded by colleagues from Germany, Britain, Japan, and a dozen other countries, all asking him for public comment on what was going on. Soon, the Ukrainian press attache arrived to save him and announced that Heraskevych would come to give an impromptu press conference himself. The photos of Heraskevych standing behind the barriers near the finish, his helmet tucked under his arm, addressing a crowd of 30 journalists, will be one of the iconic images of these Olympics.