The 2019 CIO session assigned to Milan
Milan to host the CIO session in 2019. The members of the International Olympic Committee voted unanimously for the Lombardy province capital no the penultimate day of the Session being held in Lima. About 20 minutes of presentation, accompanied by attractive videos, ambitious proposals and programmes in the spirit of unity of purpose in the name of passion for sports, celebrated as an instrument for community union and collective growth. In the end, the Contract between CIO, CONI, the Municipality and the Region was signed.
The application for candidacy was illustrated for the CIO members by project coordinator, Diana Bianchedi, by the mayor of the city, Giuseppe Sala, by the Lombardy Regional Councillor for Sport, Antonio Rossi, and by the CONI CEO, Giovanni Malagò, who highlighted the virtues “of a cutting-edge, modern and dynamic city that is in Lombardy and Lombardy is the Italian region that has made the biggest contribution to Italian sports in the Olympics. 22% of the Italian Olympic medals come from this Region. Milan has a great sports tradition and in 2019 it will also celebrate the one-hundredth anniversary of the birth of Edoardo Mangiarotti, the greatest Italian athlete who has won the most awards with 13 Olympic medals to his name, including 6 gold medals, fourth in the all-time Olympic global rankings”.
Also on the stage at Lima were the CONI Vice-Secretary General, Carlo Mornati (also an Olympic medal winner from Lombardy) and the Milan City Councillor for Sport, Roberta Guaineri.
Italy had already hosted seven CIO sessions (three on the occasion of the Turin, Rome and Cortina Games and four in Rome, the last in 1982 a few months after the death of Giulio Onesti): this is the first time ever for Lombardy. The 2019 Milan CIO session – an event that will attract about ten thousand people in one week and that will be held at the MiCo conference centre with the opening ceremony at the Scala - will assign the 2026 Winter Games. The last Olympic assignment in Italy dates back to 1966 with the assignment in Rome of Munich and Sapporo.