The Bilingual European School of Milan (BES) in Italy now offers skiing in the schoolyard with the installation of a new dry slope, 30 metres long and 10 metres wide with a safe gradient of 10%, by the Bergamo-based company Neveplast.

The new slope was declared open by former Alpine skiing champion Giorgio Rocca while the Alpine skiing World Championships were taking place in Cortina. It allows children to practice skiing during Italy’s ongoing lockdown of the country’s ski slopes, recently extended past Easter.  Instruction has been provided by currently unemployed ski instructors from the mountains.

“Neveplast’s mission has always been to make skiing and winter sports accessible to anyone, regardless of the season, place, and weather conditions, and it does so by creating ski slopes in urban areas,” said a Neveplast spokesperson.

The concept of “urban skiing” was immediately embraced by the BES, which named its attractive educational project “Ski in the city”. The school has 540 students and the plan is to give every child at least two experiences on skis, whilst remining within the current strict health protocols. The slope will be operational through Spring and then it will be decided whether to extend the ski season.

“ I could not refuse the invitation of the Bilingual European School which demonstrated once again its visionary spirit with the “Ski in the city” project. Many of the children who come to the Giorgio Rocca Ski Academy during the winter season, attend the BES here in Milan. They are such lucky kids, because, in addition to coming to ski with us now they also have the opportunity to ski in their own schoolyard during the regular weekly school time,” said Giorgio Rocca, adding,

“I have known Neveplast for some time now and I share the company’s ideas about the realization of ski slopes in urban areas to broaden the number of mountain and winter sports’ enthusiasts. Neveplast’s synthetic slopes, especially when located in the heart of the city, become valuable training grounds to bring people closer to the mountains.”

“And let’s not forget about the Olympic Games taking place in 5 years in Milan. We definitely don’t want to be caught unprepared. I hope that the “Ski in the city” project is only the first of many others that have the same power to spread the culture of skiing in the city. Approaching the Milan Cortina 2026 Olympics, I would love to see a snow village equipped with slopes of various sizes and difficulties, open all year round, located right in the city centre.”