IOC commissions ‘remote reporters’ for Winter Olympics media coverage
AIPS / MILAN: Accredited journalists at the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic Winter Games would be able to conduct mixed-zone interviews remotely, thanks to a new feature introduced by the IOC Media Operations – the OIS (Olympic Information Service) remote reporters.
“So if you want to have quotes from an athlete in Bormio and you’re not going to Bormio, you can contact our OIS remote reporter and that reporter will ask the question that you want to the person that you want and then we’ll provide back the audio files and the written files. In nearly every venue, we have an OIS remote reporter. We will publish the list of phone numbers of these reporters on the MediaZone,” Lucia Montanarella, the Associate Director Olympic Games Media Operations at the International Olympic Committee, said in an interview with AIPS at her office in the Main Press Centre.
Montanarella had also spoken about this initiative during her presentation at the 2025 AIPS Congress in Rabat, Morocco.
OIS The Olympic Information Service, which is designed to assist media with their coverage of the Olympic Games via the MediaZone platform (formerly known as myInfo), already provides real-time results, daily previews, flash quotes, athlete biographies, medal tables as well as live streaming of press conferences – during which accredited press can ask questions remotely.
There have been OIS reporters at previous Games, however, the widespread nature of the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympics has prompted the addition of the OIS remote reporters.
Montanarella said:“We never had them before so we will have to see if people will trust and use the service or not. We’ll see afterwards.
She added: “I think that these Games provide the tools for you to cover from remote, meaning that you are here (MPC), but you can cover alpine skiing. And I think that’s where we put an effort – to make sure that wherever you are, you’re able to cover the Games. You have for free all sports live streamed because they give you for free this Max account (Max is a global streaming platform from Warner Bros. Discovery), you have for free MediaZone and you have for free a dedicated reporter that can work for you – for instance, if you have an athlete that wins in Livigno, you know for sure that you have a resource that can work for you and provide you the information that you need. Then it will be up to us to do the job well, because when you ask someone else to ask the question for you, it’s not the same thing.”
The MediaZone platform goes live on Friday, January 30.
The IOC Media Operations headquarters is at the MPC in Milan, and one of its specialised functions is press ticketing, particularly for high-demand events. With regard to media ticket requests for the Opening Ceremony of the Games scheduled for February 6 at the San Siro Stadium, Montanarella said: “It’s in high demand, but we have less press in town. Well, we didn’t know how many people we would have in town. And from the requests that we received, we have done the right thing in cutting down the numbers. There are tickets in Livigno and in Pradazzo. But no tickets in Cortina, which will be a public event in the streets – well, we have secured some media areas, but there’s no ticketing. There will be different controls on site.”
While Milan will host the main event on February 6, celebrations will also take place in Predazzo, Livigno, and Cortina d’Ampezzo, with the traditional athletes’ parade spread across the four locations.
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