Official emblem for Italy's 2026 Winter Olympics finalized by first-ever public vote

ROME - The first-ever public vote over an Olympic emblem showed overwhelming support for the "Logo Futura" option for the 2026 Winter Games, the Milano Cortina Organizing Committee announced Tuesday.

The winning emblem shows the number "26" shown in a modern font, looking as if it was traced in the snow or by an ice skate, with the traditional five-colored Olympic rings below. There is a snow-colored version of the emblem as well as a multi-colored version in the same shape.

The organizing committee, which opened the online voting process on March 6, announced via live stream, that "Logo Futura" won 74 percent of the more than 870,000 votes cast. The other option was "Lago Dado", which had the numbers "2" and "6" as two sides of a cube, with the image of a snowflake on top.

According to the International Olympic Committee, this was the first time an Olympic emblem had been chosen via popular vote.

Milan, Italy's financial capital and second-largest city, was chosen as the host for the 2026 Winter Olympics along with the mountain ski resort of Cortina d'Ampezzo in 2019. The other candidate to host the games was a joint bid from Stockholm and the Swedish ski resort Are.

The 2026 games will mark the third time Italy hosted the Winter Olympics, 20 years after the 2006 Olympics hosted by Turin, and 70 years after the 1956 Games that were hosted by Cortina d'Ampezzo on its own, without Milan. Italy also hosted the 1960 Summer Olympics, in Rome.

The next edition of the Winter Olympics, in 2022, will be hosted by Beijing, which also hosted the 2008 Summer Olympics. Last year's Summer Olympics in Tokyo was delayed until later this year due to the coronavirus pandemic.