Welcome to the Dolomiti – Dolomiten – Dolomites – Dolomitis!
Never more so than on the occasion of the Milano–Cortina 2026 Olympic and Paralympic Games do we wish to extend the multilingual spirit of our official name to all the languages of the world.
Because the Dolomites are a land of welcome: a meeting place for peoples, a land of peace. A land that, in the past, was marked by conflicts that left deep scars in memory and in the landscape, and that today is ready to open its doors to the world, offering a landscape of extraordinary beauty and profound fragility. A territory which, as Roberto Padrin, President of the UNESCO Dolomites Foundation, recalled in his message for 2026, cannot remain a mere backdrop.
Each morning, the eyes of thousands of athletes will rest not only on the snow and ice on which they will compete, but also on the landscapes of the nine Dolomitic Systems recognised by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. The same will be true for the hundreds of thousands of spectators, staff members, national delegations, workers and volunteers. To all of them goes the welcome of President Roberto Padrin, on behalf of the Board of Directors of the UNESCO Dolomites Foundation.
Ph. Alessandro Zardini
It will be a shared responsibility to ensure that this gaze does not stop at the surface of the Dolomites’ extraordinary beauty, but is able to grasp – and be inspired to respect – the delicate web of ecosystems and the depths of deep time, continuously narrated by each individual “island” of this remarkable fossil archipelago.
The recognition bestowed by UNESCO – and therefore by the world – through inscription on the World Heritage List reinforces the idea that the Dolomites’ beauty, especially when appreciated in its complexity and fragility, is not an end in itself. Nor can it remain confined within the already rich cultural diversity of the communities that protect it. Our most heartfelt wish for our guests is that their gaze may be filled with that sense of wonder which is nothing other than the open doorway to the desire to know and to understand these mountains.
PEOPLES MEET IN THE PRESENCE OF A WORLD HERITAGE SITE
By Roberto Padrin, President of the UNESCO Dolomites Foundation and President of the Province of Belluno
“The Governments of the States Parties to this Constitution on behalf of their peoples declare: that since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defences of peace must be constructed; […]”
These words open the Constitution signed in London on 16 November 1945, which gave rise to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
During the Olympic and Paralympic Games, our territory will have the honour of welcoming athletes, delegations and spectators from dozens of nations, for an event whose spirit resonates in perfect harmony with the words just quoted.
Since our inclusion on the World Heritage List, we have developed synergies and strategies to manage the property entrusted to our care. Yet I believe that the Olympic and Paralympic event can also help us rediscover UNESCO’s ultimate purpose: bringing peoples closer together through education, science and culture. As the Constitution further states: “… ignorance of each other’s ways and lives has been a common cause, throughout the history of mankind, of that suspicion and mistrust between the peoples of the world through which their differences have all too often broken into war”
The Outstanding Universal Value of the Dolomites was recognised precisely because it is universal: acknowledged by all peoples, and a place in which all peoples can recognise themselves, contemplating an extraordinary beauty that cannot leave one indifferent and that invites reflection on the deep time that shaped it.
Education, science and culture, therefore, bring peoples closer together; the Olympic Games bring them together to meet and compete, in fairness and mutual respect. That all this should take place in the presence of the Dolomites, embraced by the communities who live among them, is something truly unique. It calls on us to be even more committed to fulfilling our responsibility to pass on this heritage to future generations.
My welcome, then, goes to the peoples who, in an era marked by devastating conflicts, come together here to shake hands, ready to challenge one another on snow and ice, in the shadow of mountains unique in the world – mountains which I hope they will feel, in the spirit of UNESCO, to be a little their own.