Krot and games: No Olympic feeling in Bormio yet

And at the latest when after torturous serpentines Passo d’Eira (2,210 meters above sea level) and the Passo di Foscagno (2,291) and the reverse gear had to be engaged more than once because unfortunately only one car can fit through these narrow little mountain villages, the big epiphany finally comes: I should actually be at home now.

Tiroler Veto

At home in Innsbruck, where the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics actually should have taken place. This was once the stated wish of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), which was really enthusiastic about Innsbruck and Tyrol’s application.

After three Winter Games that were either politically staged (Sotschi 2014), came across as emotionless and technocratic (Pyeongchang 2018) or else had to be completely sterile (Beijing 2022), there was a great longing for an Olympics like in the good old days. But no one believed the IOC’s sudden change of heart. In autumn 2017, the Tyroleans voted against the third games after 1964 and 1976 with 53.35 percent.

This meant that there was no such thing as a green winter games in Tyrol, where all the competition locations were St. Anton via Seefeld and Kitzbühel to Hochfilzen could have been reached by train. Anyone who tries to reach their destination by train in an environmentally friendly way here in northern Italy will inevitably find themselves sidelined: Antholz, Livigno, Cortina and Bormio all have no train station.

Not to mention that it’s half a trip around the world Cortina (women’s skiing competitions, curling, ice track) not far from the border with East Tyrol to Bormio (men’s skiing, ski mountaineering) with its immediate proximity to Switzerland.

Half-measure

In ski circles everyone just shakes their heads that the women’s and men’s competitions are so out of the world. This not only means that the team competition in which Austria would be the defending champion had to be canceled. As a result, the races in Bormio degenerate into a mediocre World Cup, under the seal of the Olympic rings.

Many of the supervisors, helpers and reporters who accompany the ski team through the winter and are now stranded in the deepest Valtellina come directly from the World Cup classics in Adelboden, Wengen, Kitzbühel and Schladming. So about the annual festival weeks of alpine skiing with 200,000 fans on the slopes, lots of spectacle and show and celebrities like Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Would he really perform his famous I’ll be back here in Bormio? Or maybe not: I’ll stay away.

Quiet place

Apparently many people think that way. Because 36 hours before the opening, Bormio appears shockingly sleepy and resembles one quiet place. The shutters of the apartment buildings are closed in rows and the streets are frighteningly deserted. There are hardly any Olympic fans mixed in between the volunteers in their blue and turquoise overalls and the law enforcement officers in all their colorfulness (Carabinieri, Polizia Stradale, Polizia Locale, Guardia di Finanzia, Forestale).

How about that? The widely announced driving bans and crazy hotel prices – at all Olympic locations, mind you – have put many people off. Anyone who wanted to book a single room in Bormio at short notice on Thursday for the next two weeks could have paid a whopping 47,889 (!) euros.

Empty beds

There would be enough empty rooms. The landlady in Hotel La Montanara has been waiting for guests for days who simply haven’t shown up. “After all, they have already paid 90 percent,” she says. A hotel in the center of Bormio has reserved rooms for a 40-person tour group since the weekend, but no one came. “It’s not really well organized,” grumbles the landlady. “There’s just nothing going on.”

You can’t say that Bormio has dressed up like other regions and destinations do when the Olympics come to visit them. There is not the slightest indication on the town sign that the Winter Games are taking place here, at least in some shops the displays in the center are themed around the rings. But hardly anyone notices it because no one is there.

But maybe this is all just the calm before the storm anyway. Let the games begin.