ROME  — Six months before the start of the Winter Olympics, Italian organisers say that, after years of ups and downs, they are on schedule.

“Preparations are progressing steadily and according to the timeline we have set,” Andrea Varnier, the chief executive officer of Milan-Cortina 2026 Olympic and Paralympic Organising Committee

The Olympic opening ceremony is on February 6, though curling kicks off the action two days earlier. The Paralympics open a month later on March 6, though curling again breaks the ice two days beforehand.

“We are currently in the core phase of operational implementation,” said Varnier.

Simico, the public company responsible for delivering the Olympic facilities, last week promised that “all the planned sports construction projects will be completed before the start of the Olympics”.

Organisers have made a point of delivering a low-cost Winter games after recent extravangances.

Sochi, in Russia in 2014, cost at least US$40 billion (RM170 billion at current exchange rates). Pyeongchang, in South Korea in 2018, came in at over US$12 billion. The Covid-hit Games in Beijing in 2022 officially cost US$4 billion, but financial analysts said that including infrastructure costs put the total at around US$38 billion.

Milan-Cortina estimate their final bill will be 5.2 billion euros. Of that 3.5 billion euros is going on infrastructure and 1.7 billion euros on staging the Games.

The Games are using a host of existing venues — emphasising the point by holding the closing ceremony in the almost 2,000-year-old Roman amphitheatre in Verona. Organisers say that avoiding new construction reduces not only costs but environmental impact.