Gold medalist Federica Brignone of Italy celebrates after receiving her gold medal for winning the women's giant slalom at the Milano Cortina Winter Olympics in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, on Sunday.Julian Finney/Getty Images
As a citizen of both Canada and Italy, I have the pleasure – sometimes the pain – of cheering for two countries at the Milan Cortina Olympics. Italy has thrilled me; Canada not so much.
By Tuesday, Italy had won 24 medals – nine gold, four silver and 11 bronze – putting it in second spot in the medal table, after perennial Winter Games superstar Norway. Canada had won 12 medals, only three of them gold.
Italy got off to a slow start at the Games, then recorded a rapid-fire string of podium finishes that electrified the country. The standout star was Federica Brignone, who won two golds in the giant slalom and super-G events over three days. She is known as the “Queen of Cortina” or simply “the Tiger.”
Her victory was all the more sweet since the 35-year-old wasn’t supposed to win anything and seemed a probable no-show after her horrific crash in the Italian national championships last April. She broke her left knee in four places, shredded a knee ligament and was pieced back together with metal screws and plates. Italians were so ecstatic by her gold-medal wins that, on Feb. 12, the Italian air force sent its aerobatic squadron, the Frecce Tricolori, over the podium for the ultimate national salute in the presence of President Sergio Mattarella.
And Canada? Zip in the men’s and women’s Alpine events and figure skating, a decent showing in speed skating (gold in women’s long-track team pursuit) and two knockout performances in freestyle skiing (gold for Mikaël Kingsbury in dual moguls, same for Megan Oldham in big air). That’s it, so far. In the 2022 Beijing Winter Games, Canada went home with 26 medals, four of them gold, ranking it 11th overall. Italy had a poorer showing, with only 17 medals, two of them gold, placing it 13th.
A giant Italian flag is displayed by fans during the medal ceremony where Italy's Federica Brignone won the gold medal in a women's giant slalom race in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, on Sunday.Andy Wong/The Associated Press
Italy came back with a vengeance in 2026. “Italy’s performance has been the story of the Games,” says Alpine Canada chief executive Therese Brisson, who was a member of Canada’s gold medal-winning hockey squad at the Salt Lake City 2002 Games.
How to explain Team Italy’s magic run?
The home-country advantage is often cited as the trick. To be sure, national pride translates into national energy that can help any athlete strive a little bit harder; they all want to wear the flag on the podium, especially in the era of Donald Trump, whose MAGA nationalism is the theme of his presidency. Middle powers like Italy want to show the world they can make an international splash too.
The home-country advantage has a physical element. Italian athletes know the terrain, they know every bump and curve on the downhill runs in Cortina and Bormio. And since the Italians wanted to save some loot, many of the competition sites that had been used in World Cups or the 1956 Winter Olympics, which were hosted by Cortina, were reused in 2026. The Italian athletes not only knew the hills, but, for instance, the sliding centre and the curling stadium too.
I don’t really buy the home-country-advantage theory – curling rinks are the same everywhere; only the ice quality differs. If the argument was solid, why did Italy post a mediocre performance in Turin in 2006? In those Olympics, in the country’s northwest, Italy won only 11 medals, though five of them were gold.
Speed skater Enrico Fabris won two of Italy's five gold medals at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy, one in the individual 1,500 metres, the other in the team pursuit.Reuters
The better explanation for Italy’s success is investment – and lots of it – in both athletes and infrastructure. Remember Own the Podium? That was the garish name for the program designed to push Canadian athletes onto the podium in the 2010 Vancouver Winter Games and beyond. It was launched after Canada embarrassed itself by not winning a single gold in the two Olympics it had played host to – Montreal 1976 and Calgary in 1988.
It worked. Canada left Vancouver with an astonishing 14 golds – an all-time record at a single Winter Olympics – and 26 medals overall.
Italy did not precisely recreate Canada’s Own The Podium. But the country seems to have been inspired by it. A variety of programs were launched to tune-up veteran athletes, like Brignone, and give the newcomers the best training, coaching and equipment. Other programs overhauled infrastructure to make it world class.
It’s hard to break down the individual investments, since the programs were so varied, and included regional and private funding as well as national funding. But it’s known that some 3.5-billion euros were doled out for infrastructure and athletic development. Athletes benefitted from ramped-up Olympic Solidarity Funding, a program which sees the International Olympic Committee funnel money into the national Olympic committees.
The Italian government also splashed out on bonuses. An Olympic gold will earn an athlete more than US$200,000. Silver winners get about half that amount, and a bronze will pay about US$70,000. Those figures are pocket change for anyone who lives in central New York or London; in Italy, they are fortunes.
Canada has incentives too for athletes in all sports. But the federal funding component has been static at about $250-million a year since 2005. As the number of sports grows – many of the freestyle winter sports did not exist 10 or 20 years ago – the investment is spread too thinly. Take men’s and women’s slalom and giant slalom. The last time Canada won a medal in those Olympic events was in 1976.
So bravo for Italy. Yes, the home-country advantage played a role in its high medal count. But, in the end, money – and lots of it – delivered the results.
Follow our live daily coverage of the Winter Games.