Val-d'Isere, France ¨C The president of the International Ski Federation (FIS), Johan Eliasch, bemoaned on Saturday the delays in preparations at the Milano-Cortina Olympic venues that will host skiing and snowboarding events.

With less than 50 days to go before the start of the 2026 Winter Olympics, the official told journalists in Val d¡¯Isere that ¡°not everything is ready.¡±

¡°The Italian government and the regions that organize the Games, they have a lot of work to do and they need to speed things up,¡± Eliasch said.

The main cause for concern is the Livigno site, which is to host the snowboarding and freestyle skiing events.

On Tuesday, the Milano-Cortina Games organizing committee acknowledged that it had encountered ¡°a technical problem¡± with the production of artificial snow at the site, which was already causing concern.

¡°We have calls three times a day, morning, noon and night,¡± Eliasch revealed. ¡°And part of the issue here (Livigno) is snow production. They¡¯ve had a number of delays, and again, it¡¯s not for lack of trying.

¡°Unfortunately, the Italian government has not released funding, so they have been struggling to make ends meet, which is very unfortunate. It should never have happened. It¡¯s unexplainable¡°.

Eliasch called the situation unprecedented.

¡°Hopefully we¡¯ll get that back on track. We have contingency plans, plan B, plan C, plan D even. Hopefully that will be enough. But again, I mean, it¡¯s unfortunate that we are in a situation that we should never have been in,¡± he added.

In order to cover the Livigno Snow Park with snow and create the jumps and halfpipes needed for the snowboard and freestyle skiing events, the organizers have to produce large quantities of artificial snow.

Their snow cannons are supplied with water from a hillside reservoir, the Monte Sponda basin, with a capacity of 203,000 cubic meters, which cost $25.4 million to build and was completed at the end of November.

Artificial snow production was initially scheduled to begin last week.