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€110m Turin Olympic Bobsleigh Track Faces DemolitionSports
The Cesana Pariol track, built for the 2006 Winter Games and abandoned five years later, is set to be pulled down under a 7.6 million euro tender, closing the book on the Games’ most divisive project.
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The controversial bobsleigh track built for the 2006 Turin Winter Olympics at a cost of 110 million euros is set to be demolished, according to documents released by local authorities. Twenty years after the Games, the concrete ribbon that once carried the world’s fastest sleds is finally coming down.
SCR Piemonte, the body responsible for public procurement in the Piedmont region of north-western Italy, issued a call for tenders earlier this month for the redevelopment and conversion of the Olympic bobsleigh, luge and skeleton site. The tender, which closes on December 10, 2026, covers a contract worth 7.6 million euros ($8.5 million) for dismantling the 1,435-metre-long track, its 19 concrete curves and all the facilities used for competitions, including technical buildings, start and finish areas and changing rooms.
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No date has been specified for the demolition work, which will finally bring an end to the most divisive project of the 2006 Olympic Games — a facility built specifically for the event, only to be quickly abandoned because of poor accessibility, a lack of any post-Games purpose and high maintenance costs.
A short and turbulent life
The Cesana Pariol track had a short and turbulent existence. Its construction was marked by controversies over its environmental impact, including a refrigeration system that used ammonia, as well as delays that pushed costs higher. It was abandoned in 2011, just five years after the Olympic flame went out.
At the time, it was the only such track in Italy. There was a brief possibility it might be revived for the 2026 Milan-Cortina Games, but the Italian government ultimately opted to build a new track in Cortina d’Ampezzo — a project that also sparked controversy and was constructed in record time at a cost of 120 million euros.
What happens to the site after demolition is still to be decided. The tender speaks of redevelopment and conversion, but the documents released so far give no firm picture of what will replace the track. For the town of Cesana, which lived with the venue for two decades, the end of the track closes a long chapter.
The Turin track now stands as one of the most expensive cautionary tales in Olympic history: a reminder that the true cost of the Games is measured not in the two weeks of competition, but in the decades of upkeep that follow — or in this case, in the price of pulling it all down.
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