A warm reception for the 2026 Winter Olympics

The 2026 Milano Cortina Winter Olympics concluded last month after 17 days of sporting excellence, history-making medal hauls, and canine course invasions. Now that the snow has settled and the tournament is over, we can assess how it compares to other recent contests in the eyes of the UK public.

Data from YouGov SportsIndex shows that in terms of Index scores (a metric that tracks a sporting event’s overall brand health by averaging several other measures), the 2026 event has been well-received. With these scores increasing from 26.6 to 32.7 over the course of the event (+6.1), the event considerably outperformed the 2022 event – which saw these measures rise from 16.8 to a final score of 17.8 (+1.0) – and represents a return to the standard set in Pyeongchang 2018. 

If we look at the measures that make up Index scores, we can make a case for 2026 being the most well-received tournament in a decade. Impression scores, which measure general positive and negative sentiment, were at 49.5 by the end of the Milano Cortina Games; Beijing’s final score was 19.3 and Pyeongchang’s was 46.0. It’s a similar story with metrics such as Consideration scores: the 2026 tournament saw them hit 28.3 by the event’s conclusion, an improvement on both 2022 (19.4) and 2018 (25.0). The overall staging also earned a good reception: Milano Cortina’s Quality scores hit 50.8, within a point of the 2018 scores (51.7) and considerably higher than those seen in 2018 (33.9).

So why did the Winter Games earn such a warm reception? We could cite the dual-city structure of the event, the striking Alpine imagery, the stories that emerged during the competition, or indeed Team GB’s record medal haul. In any case, the organisers may be hoping for a repeat of 2026’s success when the tournament returns to the Alps for the 2030 Games in France.

This article originally appeared in City A.M.

Image: Getty