CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy — Will there be an Olympic spirit or will it seem like a bunch of individual world championships? Will a complicated transport network connecting far-flung venues run smoothly?Will crowds fill the arenas, rinks and stadiums despite sluggish advance ticket sales? Will the controversial sliding venue and main hockey arena feel finished following construction delays? Will the locals remain more interested in soccer than snow and ice sports?The answers to these and many other questions that shadowed the preparation of the Milan Cortina Olympics are about to be answered. When the XXV Winter Games kick off with the opening ceremony at the San Siro soccer stadium on Friday, it won’t just be the athletes who are going to be tested. It’s a new era for the entire Olympic movement.Spread out over a vast swath of northern Italy, these Olympics are the first to truly embrace the International Olympic Committee’s reform plan of using existing venues no matter how far apart they are.Skating sports — including the return of NHL hockey players to the Olympics after more than a decade — will be held in Milan; women’s Alpine skiing, sliding and curling in Cortina d’Ampezzo; Nordic sports in Val di Fiemme; men’s Alpine skiing and ski mountaineering in Bormio; snowboarding and freestyle in Livigno; and biathlon in Anterselva.In all, this Olympic footprint covers an area of more than 22,000 square kilometres (nearly 10,000 square miles). That’s about the size of the state of Massachusetts.“I do believe that we took the right decision in having a more dispersed games,” new IOC President Kirsty Coventry said. “But it has — and I think we can all say very openly and honestly — it has added additional complexities.”Complexities that Olympic organizers are going to have to get used to because this is the first of several Winter Games arranged with the same model.The 2030 French Alps Games don’t even have a host city in its name. Same for Utah in 2034; and probably for a Switzerland bid – the only candidate – for 2038, too.“It’s a much greater conversation,” Coventry said of assessing pros and cons of the new …
