Premium

Guard at Winter Olympic construction site dies in nighttime subfreezing temperatures

According to reports from Italy, temperatures on the night when the death happened plunged to minus 12 degrees Celsius (10.4 degrees Fahrenheit.)

2 min readJan 12, 2026 05:44 PM IST

People take photos in front of the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics and Paralympics rings, in Cortina D'Ampezzo, Thursday, Nov. 20, 2025. (AP Photo)

A full investigation has been ordered into the death of a 55-year-old guard at a construction site close to the 2026 Winter Olympic venue in the mountain resort of Cortina d’Ampezzo. As per media reports coming in from Italy which cited authorities, the guard died during a frigid overnight shift. While the organisers of the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics said that the worker died of a heart attack, Italian media reported that the death occurred on Thursday while the man was on duty at a construction site near Cortina’s ice arena. According to reports, temperatures that night plunged to minus 12 degrees Celsius (10.4 degrees Fahrenheit.)

The incident is likely to cast a shadow over the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics, which will be held this year from February 6 to 22. Cortina, where the death was reported, will host Winter Olympics events like curling, sliding and women’s Alpine skiing while Milan hosts the bulk of the events.

“The information we have is that it was a death by natural cause, it was a heart attack. And we are investigating,” Andrea Varnier, CEO of the Fondazione Milano Cortina 2026, told reporters at a test event at the new hockey arena in Milan.

“All the documentation that we have was in order. And we are waiting for the investigation to understand what the specific cause was. At the moment, the information we have from the emergency services is it was a death caused by natural causes … while he was on site,” Varnier said.

The construction site was not one overseen by Simico, the governmental company responsible for Olympic infrastructure, the company said in a statement expressing its condolences.

Cortina city officials said they were “deeply saddened and troubled by the death.’’

The event is reeling for other issues as well: a test event at the Santagiulia Arena revealed that the ice hockey venue is still unfinished with workers racing against time to complete construction less than four weeks from the first game of the Olympic women’s hockey tournament.

(With inputs from AP)