Australian base in Italy gives athletes from Down Under a home edge at the Winter Olympics

MILAN (AP) — Nestled in a lakeside town in northern Italy is Australia's “home away from home” for the Milan Cortina Olympics — right down to the coffee and Vegemite.

Nearly 15 years ago, the Australian Institute of Sport opened the European Training Centre in Gavirate, about an hour’s drive from Milan.

With a fully equipped gym as well as a games room with a pool table, it offers a base to train and relax for the 3,000 Australian athletes traveling through Europe in any given year.

“It was a strategic vision because we knew that Australian athletes, one of the biggest troubles for them was the tyranny of distance of traveling” the center’s director, Fiona de Jong, told The Associated Press.

“So 24-hour flight to Europe from Australia means that you can’t do that time and time again if you’re trying to compete at the highest level. It was our answer to our unique problem as a sporting country.”

The AIS has turned the center into a little slice of Australia right from the moment athletes arrive at the facility.

Statues of a kangaroo and an emu, sporting Australia scarves, stand proudly at the entrance and inside there is an abundance of pictures and maps of Australia and plenty of green and gold — the Australian colors.

“It’s amazing for us that the long-term investment between Italy and Australia is really working in our favor for these Games,” said Alisa Camplin, the chef de mission of Australia's Olympic team. “It’s like we’ve got a home away from home, it’s like a little sanctuary where we can prepare to be excellent.”

Former aerial skier Camplin is well aware of the needs of Olympic athletes. At the 2002 Games, she and short-track speed skater Steven Bradbury claimed Australia’s first-ever gold medals at the Winter Olympics. Camplin also won bronze in Turin four years later.

“This place is a haven on the other side of the world for us as Aussies and it’s always nice for us to be able to stop in wherever we’re traveling through Europe to come back and have home care, home food, a sense of Australia,” Camplin said.

“And with the green and gold magic everywhere it’s probably gone next level but that’s what you want for the Games, you want it to feel more special than anything you’ve ever experienced before.”

The AIS chose the location long before the 2026 Olympics were awarded to Italy, but it has proven to be a happy coincidence.

“As a summer country, and we’re host to Brisbane 2032, this is as close as we’ll ever get to a home Winter Olympic Games because we don’t have natural assets like snow and mountains to ever host a Winter Olympic Games,” De Jong added.

She said they looked at sites in Spain and France before deciding on Italy “for the beautiful weather, the lovely warm people and the great food.”

And while the athletes do enjoy the Italian cuisine, the cupboards are also well stocked with home favorites such as Vegemite — the salty, brown spread beloved in Australia.

Even the coffee is from a Melbourne roaster, something that is particularly striking considering Italy is the country that gave the world espresso.

“It’s a home away from home here. We absolutely love it. You can grab some delicious pizza or some Vegemite out of the cupboard. It’s the best of both worlds,” said aerial skier Danielle Scott, who is chasing an elusive Olympic medal at her fourth games, to add to her three medals from world championships.

“We’ve come through during World Cup circuits ... just to get that refresher, work hard in the gym, relax by the beautiful lake and it’s a really awesome place for us.”

The picturesque, small town of Gavirate with a population of less than 10,000 might seem like an incongruous place for Australia to have its European base.

“I’m often asked why (here),” De Jong said with a laugh before explaining that two of the main reasons were its proximity to Milan’s main airport and the location on a lake, to help Australia’s athletes in equipment-intensive sports such as rowing and canoeing.

Another reason was that the province “were very collaborative” and enthusiastic about the center.

And the athletes have been embraced warmly by the locals. The ice cream shop proudly displays a signed shirt given to it by the athletes, and the pizzeria also has Australian memorabilia.

“I feel like the locals get kind of excited about this place. So hopefully they’ll be supporting us as well,” said cross-country skier Rosie Fordham.

The mayor of Gavirate, Massimo Parola, is certainly excited to have Australia in his town, exclaiming proudly: “Gavirate can now call itself an Olympic city.”

AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics

Australia's Winter Olympics team athletes stand at the AIS European Training Centre in Gavirate, on the Varese lake, northern Italy, Monday, Jan. 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)

Australia's Breeana Walker, left, and Kiara Reddingius sit at the AIS European Training Centre in Gavirate, on the Varese lake, northern Italy, Monday, Jan. 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)

Australia's Hugo Hinckfuss signs the jacket at the AIS European Training Centre in Gavirate, on the Varese lake, northern Italy, Monday, Jan. 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)

Australia's Rosie Fordham, right, and Seve de Campo train at the AIS European Training Centre in Gavirate, on the Varese lake, northern Italy, Monday, Jan. 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)

Australia's winter olympic athletes pose for photographers at the AIS European Training Centre in Gavirate, on the Varese lake, northern Italy, Monday, Jan. 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — If the rules of ancient Greece were observed today, drone and missile fire over Ukraine would stop on Friday as guns fall silent in the Olympic tradition.

The Milan Cortina Winter Olympics begin in one week, and the United Nations and organizers are calling for a 7-week pause of all wars worldwide — as they do every time the Olympics take place.

It serves to set a moral baseline at a time when some researchers say there are more armed conflicts than ever before and Earth is at its closest to destruction.

In ancient Greece, a truce was respected by warring city-states, allowing athletes and spectators to travel safely to Ancient Olympia for competitions and ceremonies of supreme athletic and spiritual significance.

The Olympics were revived in their modern form in 1896. The truce's resurgence followed nearly a century later, in 1994, as war raged through the former Yugoslavia.

The proposed timeout starts one week before the Winter Games open on Feb. 6 and runs until one week after the March 15 Paralympics' close. It is backed by a U.N. General Assembly resolution.

If history is any indication, no sudden worldwide peace is imminent: The truce has a dismal 0-17 record, having failed to halt a single war.

The first modern Olympic truce, during the 1994 Winter Games in Lillehammer, Norway, did produce a one-day pause in the siege of Sarajevo, allowing aid convoys to deliver food and medicine to the Bosnian capital’s desperate residents. In Sydney six years later, North and South Korea marched together at the opening ceremony.

Governments around the world overwhelmingly agree that sport can unite and heal.

"Wherever possible, we should strive toward creating even a small space for peace,” Constantinos Filis, director of the International Olympic Truce Center, told The Associated Press.

Ceasefire initiatives still count in an era of global disorder and political polarization, as unilateral aggression increasingly threatens international cooperation, argues Filis, who is also director of the Institute of Global Affairs in Athens.

“This may not always be achievable in practice," he said, "but the message reaches every corner of the globe."

Outside the Swedish capital of Stockholm, a group of academics has tracked global war trends for more than 80 years. It reported that 2024 had the highest number of active armed conflicts in a single year: 61.

“We’ve seen quite a strong increase in the number of conflicts over the past five or six years,” said Shawn Davies, a senior analyst at Uppsala University’s Department of Peace and Conflict Research. And its upcoming annual report will show 2025 had even more conflicts than the prior year, he added.

As the U.S. steps back from multilateralism, Davies said, countries are becoming more likely to test their neighbors, creating a more volatile, fragmented security landscape.

Some major conflicts remain largely unnoticed in the West, he said, pointing to western Africa, where al-Qaida and Islamic State group affiliates continue to spread across borders.

And the “Doomsday Clock”, a symbolic gauge of Earth’s existential peril, edged closer to midnight this week, according to an announcement from members of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

U.N. truce resolutions typically pass with broad majorities. Yet signatories repeatedly break their own pledge. Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 infamously began during a truce period.

“I think the Olympics are an excellent moment to symbolize peace, to symbolize respect for international law, and to symbolize international cooperation,” U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres told reporters Thursday.

Kirsty Coventry, the multi-Olympic swimming champion who last year became the first woman to lead the International Olympic Committee, addressed the General Assembly at the latest vote in November.

Watching peaceful competition, she said, inspired her to begin her gold-medal journey as a young girl in Zimbabwe.

“Even in these dark times of division, it is possible to celebrate our shared humanity and inspire hope for a better future,” Coventry said.

“Sport — and the Olympic Games in particular — can offer a rare space where people meet not as adversaries, but as fellow human beings,” she said. “This is why the Olympic Truce is so important.”

Associated Press writer Edith M. Lederer contributed to this report from the United Nations.

AP Winter Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics

A board bearing signatures of athletes, leaders and public figures, in support of the Olympic Truce is displayed inside the Athens Olympic Museum on Jan. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)

The Director of the International Olympic Truce Centre Constantinos Filis speak to the Associated Press during an interview in Athens, Jan. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)

People stand outside the Panathenaic Stadium with the Olympic rings, in Athens on Jan. 27, 2026, the site of the first modern Olympic Games in 1896. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)

FILE- People look at the damage following a rocket attack the city of Kyiv, Ukraine, Feb. 25, 2022. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti, File)

FILE - Fireworks explode during the closing ceremony of the 2022 Winter Olympics, Feb. 20, 2022, in Beijing. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue, File)

A board bearing signatures of athletes, leaders and public figures, in support of the Olympic Truce is displayed inside the Athens Olympic Museum on Jan. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)