Milan and Turin have united to make a joint bid to stage the 2026 Winter Olympics, the Italian Olympic Committee (CONI) has confirmed.
The joint Italian offer joins bids from Calgary, Sapporo, Sion and Stockholm, with the possibility of further bids from an Austrian venue and the Turkish province of Erzurum, with a decision being made in September 2019.
But, like other recent Olympic bidding contests, this race is still shrouded in uncertainty as Sion's bid is expected to drop out when the Swiss city holds a referendum later this year, with similar concerns about costs around the Austrian bid.
Stockholm pulled out of a bid in 2022 and CONI was reluctantly forced to admit defeat when Rome's bid for the 2024 Games withdrew in 2016.
Sapporo's chances of success also seem unlikely, given the fact that it would be a third straight Winter Games in the Far East, with Tokyo also hosting the 2020 Summer Games.
The Milan and Turin bid will also raise some eyebrows as Turin staged the Winter Games on its own in 2006.
In a statement, CONI said it has written to the International Olympic Committee to confirm that Milan/Turin would like to enter the bidding process's "dialogue phase" - a new stage intended to iron out any concerns the bids may have and help them make stronger cases.
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