(NEW YORK) — Athletes and fans will start arriving at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan next month, but one U.S. agency has been on the ground working to ensure safety at the games.
Special agents from the U.S. Diplomatic Security Service (DSS) have been working with the local authorities in Italy since 2022 to secure the Winter Olympic games, according to two top officials involved in the planning.
As the State Department’s law enforcement arm, DSS is responsible for securing international events and embassies around the world. As they have in years past, the agency takes a front and center role in helping to secure the Olympic Games, working in concert with authorities from the host country.
“We have a memorandum of understanding with the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee to provide intelligence and security support for them while they’re overseas to keep them safe so they can concentrate on winning the gold medals,” Timothy Ayers, the major events coordinator for DSS, told ABC News.
In addition to providing security for U.S. athletes, DSS also helps to provide security for American corporations that are on the ground at the games, and the agency is ready to deploy if something were to happen.
DSS also provides training for the host country in order to better work together, including bringing officials to National Special Security Events in the United States, such as the Super Bowl and The Masters.
“Our team is focused really on strengthening relationships with our Italian counterparts, both at the national and subnational level,” Nick Fanelli, the Olympic security coordinator in Milan, told ABC News. “A lot of our engagement started in Rome, with contacts within the ministries and then going down to the provincial level, making contacts with the provincial counterparts both from the local police and local governments down to municipal level.”
Fanelli has been in Italy for two years planning and creating on-the-ground relationships with Italian security services, he said.
Agents from DSS are physically embedded with the teams and in the Olympic village, according to Ayers.
Both said they see the lone wolf actor as the biggest threat to the games, but said there are no credible threats currently.
“One thing that we’re always concerned about at an Olympics or a World Cup is that lone wolf attack,” Ayers aid. “We’re very comfortable with the fact that we can track things that are organized and things like that … when things happen we can track those kinds of things, but that lone wolf attack, that lone actor, it’s very difficult to track as they’re acting on their own, they’re acting with less resources and they can do what they want so that is usually a very concerning thing.”
Given the sprawling nature of events at the games, securing the transportation is key, according to the two senior DSS agents.
“The Italians are supremely prepared for this,” Fanelli said. “They have been hosting a number of different exercises across fields, if you will, transportation structure, critical infrastructure, to stress test their systems, to iron out their communications, and we have a lot of redundant comps with them as well.”
He said that DSS has people on the ground in constant contact with Italian authorities should something happen, including putting an agent at every one of the events. Those agents could be a resource for U.S. citizens who attend the games, in addition to the athletes.
“My team and I know these venue managers very personally,” Fanelli said. “We know our security contacts and police contacts on a first name basis throughout all of Northern Italy. So, they know that if there’s an American citizen that’s in crisis or has an issue, in addition to following their normal protocols, they’re going to notify us as well, so we’ll get that information and we can marshal resources.”
Ayers said there will be over 100 agents in Milan for the games.
Copyright © 2026, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
