The President of the International Olympic Committee -IOC-, Kirsty Coventry, declared the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic Winter Games officially closed on Sunday after 19 days of competition and a global operation that delivered record figures in participation, media production and digital reach. “Dear friends, I now declare the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic Winter Games closed,” she said during the closing ceremony held in Italy, where she also highlighted the structural impact of the event, stating that “you have delivered a new kind of Winter Games and set a very high standard for the future.”
A total of 2,900 athletes competed representing 92 National Olympic Committees -NOCs-, alongside Individual Neutral Athletes -AIN-, in a programme featuring eight sports, 16 disciplines and 116 medal events, with 740 medals awarded. During the Games, 13 Olympic records and one world record were broken, while ski mountaineering made its Olympic debut. Among the historic milestones, Brazil won its first-ever Winter Olympic gold medal through Lucas Pinheiro Braathen in the men’s giant slalom, while Georgia secured its first podium finish with silver in pair figure skating.
Most gender-balanced Winter Games and ski mountaineering Olympic debut
Milano Cortina 2026 marked the most gender-balanced edition in the history of the Olympic Winter Games, with women accounting for 47 per cent of participating athletes. The programme included 50 women’s events, compared to 46 at Beijing 2022, and 12 of the 16 disciplines achieved full gender balance. The competition schedule also introduced eight new medal events, including the men’s and women’s sprint and mixed relay in ski mountaineering, the mixed team event in skeleton, the women’s doubles in luge, men’s and women’s dual moguls in freestyle skiing, and the women’s large hill individual event in ski jumping.
The operational scale of the Games was also reflected in spectator attendance and logistics. More than 1.3 million tickets were sold, while over 600,000 people visited the official Fan Villages across host regions in Italy. The volunteer programme mobilised 18,000 individuals selected from 130,000 applicants, representing 98 nationalities, with 48 per cent aged under 35. Across the six Olympic Villages, daily consumption included 356 kilograms of pasta, 10,000 eggs, 8,000 coffees and 12,000 pizza slices served to athletes and team staff. Kirsty Coventry acknowledged their contribution, stating that “the volunteers brought their energy, their kindness and their commitment, and gave these Games their spirit.”
6,500 broadcast hours and 10,000 media professionals deployed
The media operation reached unprecedented levels for a Winter Olympic Games, with 24 Media Rights-Holders and more than 80 international sublicensees. Olympic Broadcasting Services -OBS- produced over 6,500 hours of live coverage using more than 810 camera systems, including 25 drones, 32 cinematic cameras and 17 real-time 360-degree replay systems. The broadcast infrastructure also included 1,800 microphones and involved more than 10,000 broadcast professionals, including over 4,500 from OBS and more than 5,500 from rights-holding broadcasters worldwide.
Media coverage included 2,534 accredited journalists, among them 267 domestic and 2,267 international media representatives from 803 organisations, as well as 694 photographers. In terms of audience reach, two out of three viewers in Italy watched coverage on public broadcaster Rai, exceeding the combined reach of the previous four Winter Olympic Games. In the United States, coverage averaged 24.1 million viewers across NBC, Peacock and associated platforms, marking the highest Winter Games audience since 2014 and a 93 per cent increase compared to Beijing 2022. In Japan, total television reach exceeded 92 million viewers, representing more than 80 per cent of the potential audience, while in France, more than 50 million viewers followed the Games through France Télévisions.
110 million digital users and the most valuable Olympic medals in history
The digital performance of Milano Cortina 2026 set new benchmarks across the Olympic ecosystem. A total of 110 million users engaged with the official Olympics website and mobile application, which recorded 120 million opens and ranked as the number one sports app in more than 75 territories. Direct communication channels delivered 170 million push notifications and 120 million personalised emails in nine languages. Across social media platforms, official Olympic Games accounts generated more than 10 billion interactions, tripling the engagement recorded during Beijing 2022, and added 8.7 million new followers to reach a global total of more than 172 million.
The economic value of Olympic medals also reached historic levels. Each gold medal awarded at Milano Cortina 2026, weighing approximately 506 grams and composed primarily of silver with a minimum of six grams of gold, carries an estimated intrinsic value between 2,300 and 2,500 US dollars, driven by gold prices reaching 5,000 dollars per ounce. Silver medals, containing approximately 500 grams of silver, reached an intrinsic value of around 1,400 dollars following a 180 per cent increase in silver prices since the Olympic Games Paris 2024.
