The 2026 Winter Olympic Games is entering its final week, with the best athletes from around the world converging on northern Italy. So far Norway is leading the table at the Milano Cortina games, with 28 medals, while Team GB is currently at 12th, out of 26, having scooped three medals – all gold. It could be on course to beat its all-time record set in Sochi in 2014, when British athletes came home with five medals, with hopes still alive in both the men’s and women’s curling, the women’s ski big air, and the women’s ski halfpipe.

But what happens to all the world-class facilities hosting the games once the athletes have gone? Italy last hosted the Winter Olympics 20 years ago, when events were held in Turin, and the legacy of the games can still be seen.

A group of urban explorers have revealed how venues built for the 2006 games have been left to rot, just two decades after millions of Euros was spent to build them. The group, known as Broken Window Theory, visited two sites, an ice track for bobsleigh, luge, and skeleton, and a ski jump venue, and were surprised by what they found.

Opening the video, the host said: “Right now Italy is hosting the world again for the 2026 Winter Olympics, and while these games want to build something that lasts, we went looking for what the legacy can really mean once the athletes are gone and the cameras have moved on. Because last time some of Italy’s Olympic venues were simply abandoned.”

He added: “When the new venues rise, the old ones remain as scars on the landscape, too expensive to maintain and too costly to erase.”

The video shows the group visiting an ice track in Cesana Torinese, which is in remarkably good condition, despite having been left untouched for 15 years. Olympic flags and cameras are still in place, as well as a cabinet where the Olympic torch once stood.

“For two weeks back in 2006, the world’s best athletes rocketed down this 1.4km long course,” he says. “Twenty years later the site sits dormant, winding down the southern Alps like a scar through the forest. It was built for 7,000 spectators, but for years now it’s been empty.”

According to the video’s host, the venue was used for some training events and competitions following the 2006 games, but the refrigeration system was shut down in 2011, and it has stood empty ever since.

The team also visit a ski jump venue in Pragelato, which shows more signs of age, including overgrown weeds, vandalism, and graffiti. “This site was meant to live on as a national training hub, created to shape the next generation of Italian ski jumpers,” the host says. “But, with space for up to 9,000 fans to watch the spectacle, it was built for a future that never came.”

Closing the video, he says: “With the Winter games back in Italy, the promises of a legacy have returned again. But after seeing what gets left behind, that word can sometimes become an excuse for venues too specialised to reuse and too expensive to keep alive.

“And while the event can create real long-term benefits for local communities, what we witnessed today isn’t sustainability – it’s a bill that lasts for decades. And if nothing changes, ‘legacy’ can just become the polite name for the mess left behind when the lights go out.”

According to the 2026 game’s organisers, 85 per cent of venues used are pre-existing, or have been built temporarily and will be dismantled after events come to an end. Meanwhile, the Olympic Village in Milan will be transformed into student housing, and the event is being used to improve transport and infrastructure in Northern Italy.