Milan Cortina, women's games

If the 1956 Winter Olympics in Cortina are remembered as the first in which the athletes' oath was read by a woman, Giuliana Minuzzo Chenal, those in Milan Cortina will be remembered as the first organised by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) with a female president, Kirsty Coventry. The two-time Olympic champion (in the 200 backstroke) actually stands out in other respects too: she is the first African president of the IOC, the first ex-minister (from Zimbabwe) to hold the post, the youngest since a certain Baron Pierre de Coubertin was appointed in 1896 (succeeding Demetrios Vikelas since, as perhaps few know, the creator of the modern Games was not its first president). Coventry's election in 2025 sealed a long and slow transition, as the first to be co-opted into IOC were Finland's Pirjo Häggman and Venezuela's Flor Isava Fonseca in 1981. On the other hand, the Winter Olympic Federations Council, which groups the ice and snow sports federations, still consists of eight males.

Milan Cortina 2026 is also the most gender-balanced Winter Olympics in history: women account for 47 per cent of the participants. In 1956, women could only compete in three sports - figure skating, alpine skiing and cross-country skiing - and were a much more modest 16% of the competitors. Only Hungary achieved parity - but only fielded two athletes overall - while only males competed under the colours of Japan and Spain. Italia did not shine (18%), but still did better than the USA (14%) and the Soviet Union (13%).

For the Italians, 'la' Minuzzo Chenal, the 'little mother from Cogne', twice fourth after her bronze medal in the downhill at Oslo 1952 and before that in the giant slalom at Squaw Valley 1960, was the female face from Cortina. She had returned to competition after her pregnancy, in fact, debunking the then dominant discourse that sport was detrimental to femininity and fertility. The discriminatory attitude towards women in Switzerland also extended into the electoral arena. The Ampezzo triumphs of two female athletes from the French-speaking part of the country, Renée Colliard and Madeleine Berthod from the valley, raised the hopes of the Swiss suffragettes in view of the referendum in the canton of Berne scheduled a few weeks after the Olympics - if the athletes had made their mark in something as important as skiing, shining brighter than their teammates, surely they were able to vote in the local elections? A pious illusion: the exclusively male voters were against such a bold reform and it was not until 1959 that women gained the right to vote in Vaud - paradoxically the canton of Lausanne, where the IOC has its headquarters -.

Women in 1956 also played a subsidiary role in the organisation of the Olympics. None were involved in the inter-ministerial tables and local political mechanisms, and in the organisational machine they occupied only three of the 102 managerial positions. As a meagre, probably consolation, the two consultants of the City Council for 'social events' were women, while Countess Marisa Bonacossa took care of the wives of executives and dignitaries. In this respect, there has been great progress, symbolised by Evelina Christillin's experience for Turin 2006. In 2026, 15 of the 16 sports will have women's competitions - which to be fair raises several questions. The 21st century saw the arrival of new women's sports, such as bobsleigh in 2002 and ski jumping in 2014, practised worldwide by a few hundred female athletes. The discipline that still resists the IOC's warning, Nordic combined - jumping plus cross-country skiing - which has been continuously present since 1924, is now at serious risk of exclusion. A vote will be held in June to determine its fate. The issue surrounding the extension of the 50 km cross-country skiing event to women is different: many people remember the dramatic case of the Swiss Gabriela Andersen-Schiess who, when the first women's Olympic marathon was run, arrived staggering at the finish line, several minutes behind the winner. If something similar were to happen in Val di Fiamme, high voices of criticism would be raised, forgetting that since 1984 the times of the best marathon runners have been greatly reduced and that the same is likely to happen with the most gruelling of cross-country races.