Get Ready for This Year’s Undemocratic, Debt-Ridden, and Mobster-Infused Winter Olympics
This deserves loud pushback.
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Get Ready for This Year’s Undemocratic, Debt-Ridden, and Mobster-Infused Winter Olympics
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February 5, 2026
Get Ready for This Year’s Undemocratic, Debt-Ridden, and Mobster-Infused Winter Olympics
ICE thugs in the streets, Mafia meddling, and billions in waste—seems like the Games are off to a great start.
Jules Boykoff and Dave Zirin
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People take part in a demonstration against US Immigration and Customs Enforcement ahead of the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic Games in Milan, Italy, on January 31, 2026.
(Piero Cruciatti / AFP via Getty Images)
On February 6, the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics kick off with an opening ceremony featuring the likes of Mariah Carey and Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli. With lagging ticket sales among locals and protests clogging the streets of Milan to decry the presence of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) as security for JD Vance’s delegation, these Olympics already bear the stink of political discontent. When combined with the Beijing 2022 Winter Games and the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics, Milano Cortina arrives during the Olympics’ most politically charged inflection point since the back-to-back boycotts of the early 1980s.
In the face of controversy, the Olympic propaganda machine, now headed by new IOC president Kirsty Coventry, is cranking up to 11. Giovanni Malago, the president of the Italian National Olympic Committee, enthused that thanks to the Olympics, “2026 will be the year of Italy.” Olympic officials are promising “a once-in-a-lifetime” experience at Milano Cortina. And yet, for something “once in the lifetime,” its problems are all too familiar.
This is the first Olympics staged after a batch of much-ballyhooed “Olympic Agenda” reforms carried out by the International Olympic Committee that were first approved back in 2014. Former IOC president Thomas Bach noted, “Milano Cortina 2026 will be the first…to fully benefit from our Olympic Agenda reforms from start to finish.”
But how different are these Olympics, really? In the 21st century, the Games are beset by ingrained problems such as overspending, corruption, intensified policing, and greenwashing. Despite cosmetic Olympic reforms, the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics show us that these problems have largely remained unaddressed. Or as sports mega-events scholar Sven Daniel Wolfe wrote, “Olympic reforms risk repeating the crises…that they were ostensibly designed to solve.”
Research from Oxford University has found that every Olympics going back to 1960 has suffered from cost overruns. The Milano Cortina 2026 Games will be no exception. The group Mountain Wilderness found that “costs have risen from the initial estimate of …
This deserves loud pushback.
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Get Ready for This Year’s Undemocratic, Debt-Ridden, and Mobster-Infused Winter Olympics
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Current Issue
February 5, 2026
Get Ready for This Year’s Undemocratic, Debt-Ridden, and Mobster-Infused Winter Olympics
ICE thugs in the streets, Mafia meddling, and billions in waste—seems like the Games are off to a great start.
Jules Boykoff and Dave Zirin
Share
Copy Link
X (Twitter)
Bluesky Pocket
Ad Policy
People take part in a demonstration against US Immigration and Customs Enforcement ahead of the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic Games in Milan, Italy, on January 31, 2026.
(Piero Cruciatti / AFP via Getty Images)
On February 6, the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics kick off with an opening ceremony featuring the likes of Mariah Carey and Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli. With lagging ticket sales among locals and protests clogging the streets of Milan to decry the presence of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) as security for JD Vance’s delegation, these Olympics already bear the stink of political discontent. When combined with the Beijing 2022 Winter Games and the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics, Milano Cortina arrives during the Olympics’ most politically charged inflection point since the back-to-back boycotts of the early 1980s.
In the face of controversy, the Olympic propaganda machine, now headed by new IOC president Kirsty Coventry, is cranking up to 11. Giovanni Malago, the president of the Italian National Olympic Committee, enthused that thanks to the Olympics, “2026 will be the year of Italy.” Olympic officials are promising “a once-in-a-lifetime” experience at Milano Cortina. And yet, for something “once in the lifetime,” its problems are all too familiar.
This is the first Olympics staged after a batch of much-ballyhooed “Olympic Agenda” reforms carried out by the International Olympic Committee that were first approved back in 2014. Former IOC president Thomas Bach noted, “Milano Cortina 2026 will be the first…to fully benefit from our Olympic Agenda reforms from start to finish.”
But how different are these Olympics, really? In the 21st century, the Games are beset by ingrained problems such as overspending, corruption, intensified policing, and greenwashing. Despite cosmetic Olympic reforms, the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics show us that these problems have largely remained unaddressed. Or as sports mega-events scholar Sven Daniel Wolfe wrote, “Olympic reforms risk repeating the crises…that they were ostensibly designed to solve.”
Research from Oxford University has found that every Olympics going back to 1960 has suffered from cost overruns. The Milano Cortina 2026 Games will be no exception. The group Mountain Wilderness found that “costs have risen from the initial estimate of …
Get Ready for This Year’s Undemocratic, Debt-Ridden, and Mobster-Infused Winter Olympics
This deserves loud pushback.
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Get Ready for This Year’s Undemocratic, Debt-Ridden, and Mobster-Infused Winter Olympics
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Current Issue
February 5, 2026
Get Ready for This Year’s Undemocratic, Debt-Ridden, and Mobster-Infused Winter Olympics
ICE thugs in the streets, Mafia meddling, and billions in waste—seems like the Games are off to a great start.
Jules Boykoff and Dave Zirin
Share
Copy Link
Facebook
X (Twitter)
Bluesky Pocket
Email
Ad Policy
People take part in a demonstration against US Immigration and Customs Enforcement ahead of the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic Games in Milan, Italy, on January 31, 2026.
(Piero Cruciatti / AFP via Getty Images)
On February 6, the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics kick off with an opening ceremony featuring the likes of Mariah Carey and Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli. With lagging ticket sales among locals and protests clogging the streets of Milan to decry the presence of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) as security for JD Vance’s delegation, these Olympics already bear the stink of political discontent. When combined with the Beijing 2022 Winter Games and the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics, Milano Cortina arrives during the Olympics’ most politically charged inflection point since the back-to-back boycotts of the early 1980s.
In the face of controversy, the Olympic propaganda machine, now headed by new IOC president Kirsty Coventry, is cranking up to 11. Giovanni Malago, the president of the Italian National Olympic Committee, enthused that thanks to the Olympics, “2026 will be the year of Italy.” Olympic officials are promising “a once-in-a-lifetime” experience at Milano Cortina. And yet, for something “once in the lifetime,” its problems are all too familiar.
This is the first Olympics staged after a batch of much-ballyhooed “Olympic Agenda” reforms carried out by the International Olympic Committee that were first approved back in 2014. Former IOC president Thomas Bach noted, “Milano Cortina 2026 will be the first…to fully benefit from our Olympic Agenda reforms from start to finish.”
But how different are these Olympics, really? In the 21st century, the Games are beset by ingrained problems such as overspending, corruption, intensified policing, and greenwashing. Despite cosmetic Olympic reforms, the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics show us that these problems have largely remained unaddressed. Or as sports mega-events scholar Sven Daniel Wolfe wrote, “Olympic reforms risk repeating the crises…that they were ostensibly designed to solve.”
Research from Oxford University has found that every Olympics going back to 1960 has suffered from cost overruns. The Milano Cortina 2026 Games will be no exception. The group Mountain Wilderness found that “costs have risen from the initial estimate of …
