Winter Olympics Highlighted as ASMR Wonderland by Guardian
The Milano Cortina Games are described as an 'ASMR wonderland' by The Guardian, with the sounds of skiing and poles creating a unique auditory experience.
20 Feb, 10:00 — 20 Feb, 10:08
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Milano Cortina: Ukrainian athletes will boycott Paralympic opening ceremony
(ANSA) - ROME, FEB 20 - Ukrainian athletes will not take part in the opening ceremony of the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Paralympics at the Verona Arena on March 6 in protest at the International Paralympic Committee's decision to allow Russian and Belarusian athletes to take part under their own national flags, the Ukrainian Paralympic Committee has said. Russia and its ally Belarus have largely been banned from international sport since Moscow's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, with individual athletes having to take part in competition as neutrals. Kyiv had already said its government officials would not take part in the ceremony and European Sports Commissioner Glenn Micallef announced he will snub it too in protest. The Italian government has said it is against the International Paralympic Committee's decision. "The Italian Government expresses its absolute opposition to the International Paralympic Committee's decision to allow six Russian and four Belarusian athletes to participate in the Milano Cortina 2026 Paralympics under their national emblems, including their anthem," Deputy Premier and Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani and Sports Minister Andrea Abodi said in a statement. "Russia's ongoing violation of the truce and of Olympic and Paralympic ideals, supported by Belarus, is incompatible with the participation of their athletes in the Games, except as neutral individual athletes". (ANSA). Read article...
By ANSA
Read full article →Clapping skis to the pulpy thrash of poles: the Winter Olympics are an ASMR wonderland
The TV screen’s jazz of drags, snaps, pops, and stops during the Milano Cortina Games have shown sport at its most powder-light and loveable The mountains always promise escape from the squalor of existence at sea level, if not a kind of purification. The fortifying ruggedness of the terrain, the apple-crisp air, the high-albedo dazzle of sunlit snow: at altitude, it seems, everything is thinned to its essence. The Winter Olympics frequently play on this mythology of purity, but rarely has culture’s quadrennial ascent up the switchbacks felt as clarifying as it does this year. Propelling us into heights untroubled by the compromises and tradeoffs that blight sport’s lower zones, Milano Cortina has delivered images so brilliant and sharp they’ve also served to expose how ugly – and morally murky – most non-Olympic team sports have become over the past four years. As a TV spectacle, the excellence of this Olympiad has been defined as much by absence as presence. No gambling ads, no live betting odds gunking up the screen, no win percentage trackers, no janky little segments in which the hosts joke about what the prediction markets are doing: these Games have brought delight and relief to a tired public’s eyes in equal measure. Cleaned of clutter and slop, sport, it turns out, can still be a thing of wonder and mystery, agony and beauty. Who would have thought? Continue reading...
By Aaron Timms
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