MILAN — For those who know about California, and those who don’t: Oakland is east of San Francisco, across the Bay Bridge. The author Gertrude Stein grew up in Oakland. She would later write, famously, about her hometown: there is no there there.
In Milan, as it relates to the 2026 Winter Games: there is no here here.
These Games have, like, zero buzz.
MILAN — The great thing about sports and in particular the Winter Olympics is that predictions mean, literally, nothing.
In a medal almost no one saw coming, Ben Ogden took silver Tuesday in what in cross-country skiing is called the sprint — the first American medal in men’s xc ski since Bill Koch in 1976.
Fifty years of nothing and, in just over three minutes, bang.
“It’s a dream, you know?” Ogden, 25, who grew up in Landgrove, Vermont (2020 U.S. Census: population 177), said afterward.
MILAN — The buildup to Sunday’s women’s Olympic downhill, Lindsey Vonn’s comeback story, had been extraordinary.
Then, just 13 seconds into the race, she crashed in an explosive shower of ice and snow. For the second time in 10 days — the fall Jan. 30 in Switzerland that destroyed the ACL in her left knee — she was airlifted off the mountain.
“It’s like the man in the arena,” Vonn’s sister, Karin Kildow said, citing Teddy Roosevelt’s famed speech from 1910. “She dared greatly. She put it all out there.”
Now, perhaps the most profound image that will linger from these 2026 Winter Games will be that helicopter framed against the sky — Vonn, in a red body bag, suspended, with what’s next a complete unknown.
MILAN — In her remarks Friday at the Milano-Cortina 2026 opening ceremony, IOC president Kirsty Coventry invoked the African philosophy called ubuntu.
The essence of ubuntu, linked in particular in history to Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Demond Tutu, is that one’s humanity is inextricably connected to the humanity of everyone else.
What might ubuntu mean for the way the IOC operates, as a touchstone for key decisions, the way the organization — which dates to 1894 — positions itself in these middle years of the 21st century? The IOC is, has always been, Eurocentric. And now this rooted-in-Africa philosophy? Can Kirsty Coventry get ubuntu buy-in?
MILAN — These Milano-Cortina 2026 Winter Games, which opened Friday night to ceremonies across northern Italy, including a traditional and spectacular show at the iconic San Siro stadium in Milan, would seem the last at which the Russians are not coming.
At least under their flag, anthem, colors, all that.
To be clear: the war in Ukraine is horrific, the carnage almost unimaginable, the toll upon thousands upon thousands of lives immeasurable. All of it is awful beyond words, cause for profound heartache.
The issue the war - any war - presents in an Olympic context is essential: should an athlete be responsible for what his or her government does? If so, why?
MILAN — Perhaps the Milano-Cortina 2026 Winter Games will be prove a welcome distraction.
The International Olympic Committee could use it.
The IOC president, Kirsty Coventry, in a news conference at the end of the group’s Milan assembly, said it is “at a pivoting point.”
Challenges with both the Olympic business model and the human resources culture in Lausanne and perhaps beyond now seem to be surfacing at multiple levels and at a rapid pace. That would suggest symptoms of way bigger issues.
Insiders at World Athletics are believed to have stolen about $1.75 million over “a period of several years,” prompting the federation to pursue criminal cases while launching “a set of enhanced internal financial controls,” it said in a statement.
The federation said it discovered the “systemic theft” earlier this year. The focus, it said in the statement, centers on two former employees and a contracted consultant. At issue: fake or doctored invoices.
One of the two ex-employees left before the theft was discovered. The other, and the consultant, “had their contracts terminated,” the federation said in that statement, offered in response to an inquiry about the matter.
The immediate past president of the International Olympic Committee, Thomas Bach, served for 12 years with this elegant guiding notion: “unity in diversity.”\
Six years ago, Bach wrote a column published in The Guardian, the British newspaper, that read, in part: “The Olympic Games cannot prevent wars and conflicts. Nor can they address all the political and social challenges in our world. But they can set an example for a world where everyone respects the same rules and one another.”
The new IOC president, Kirsty Coventry, elected in March, faces enormous challenge in delivering on the aspirational promise of the Olympics that Bach articulated so eloquently.
That mission is at grave risk because the government of Indonesia is not allowing a six-member Israeli team to compete in the world gymnastics championships due to begin next week in Jakarta.
The IOC’s mission then is the mission now: to put sport at the “service of the harmonious development of humankind, with a view to promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity,” as it says in the Olympic Charter.
The Olympic Charter is very clear.
It says, point 5, “Recognizing that sport occurs within the framework of society, sports organizations within the Olympic Movement shall apply political neutrality.”
As matters stand, the Israeli team is unable to compete at the gymnastics world championships - due to begin Oct. 19 - in Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia.
Why? The government of Indonesia has denied visas to a six-person Israeli delegation amid the war with Hamas in Gaza. The Israeli team includes Artem Dolgopyat, who won the floor exercise at both the 2020 Olympics and 2023 worlds; he took silver in Paris in 2024.
This is just wrong.
