Winter Olympics competition close to location of 20,000 dinosaur footprints

Dinosaur Footprints Discovered Near 2026 Winter Olympics Site

A few Olympians will soon compete in an area where ancient giants once left their mark.

Recently, an Italian wildlife photographer stumbled upon what is now regarded as the oldest and largest known collection of dinosaur footprints, located in a national park close to Bormio, which will host events for the 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics. This remarkable site is situated just about a mile from the men’s alpine skiing event entrance, according to officials.

The astonishing find includes an estimated 20,000 footprints, believed to date back around 210 million years to the Triassic period. These prints were made by a long-necked bipedal herbivore, somewhat resembling Plateosaurus, which measured up to 33 feet and could weigh around 4 tons, as explained by Cristiano Dal Sasso, a paleontologist affiliated with the Natural History Museum of Milan.

“This time, reality really exceeded fantasy,” said Dal Sasso.

Helio Della Ferrera, the photographer, discovered the footprints in September at Stelvio National Park, situated near the Swiss border. Experts suggest that this site was once a prehistoric coastal area where no dinosaur footprints had been found previously.

The footprints are located on a north-facing wall at elevations between 7,900 and 9,200 feet, mostly shaded from sunlight. Dal Sasso mentioned that spotting the footprints can be challenging without a high-powered lens.

“What surprised us most was not just finding the footprints but discovering them in such vast quantities. There are really tens of thousands of footprints, with varying levels of preservation,” Della Ferrera noted.

Currently, there are no plans to make the footprints accessible to the public. Yet, Lombardy Governor Attilio Fontana described the discovery as a “gift to the Olympics.”