Athletes competing in Cortina for the 2026 Winter Games will have unobstructed views of the Dolomites but the rooms are what’s getting people’s attention.
Instead of building a new village or repurposing hotels, about half the athletes at the Milan Cortina Games will be staying in a trailer park.
A temporary residential complex in Fiames, in the heart of the Dolomites, will house 1,400 Olympic athletes, about half of the participants.
Cortina will host women’s Alpine skiing, curling, bobsled, luge and skeleton during the Games.
The Cortina d’Ampezzo Olympic and Paralympic village will include 377 rented mobile homes connected by pathways that lead to communal areas including dining facilities and athletic preparation zones.
The 200-square-foot rooms will house two athletes each and include a private bathroom and shower. Rooms for the Paralympians will have handicap-accessible showers, toilets and beds.
The Associated Press reports, after the Games, the mobile homes will be reused at camping sites around Italy, with some already destined for a hockey club in nearby Brunico.
The larger temporary buildings are heated by a thermal power plant running on natural gas that also warms the village’s water supply.
Organizers say the trees cut down to create the village will be replanted after the Olympics.
Cortina’s mobile home park is one of the two main Olympic villages, the other is in Milan.
The Milano Olympic and Paralympic Village will include multi-story buildings that will turn into student housing after the Games.
Those will be home to most of the ice sports including figure skating, speed skating, short track and ice hockey. The opening and closing ceremonies will also take place in Milan and Verona
The 2026 Olympic Games are in Italy Feb. 6 to Feb. 22. The Paralympics follow from March 6 to March 15.
