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Milan (AFP)

Italy's bid for the 2026 Winter Olympics will be a two-city candidacy of Milan and Cortina d'Ampezzo, with Turin ruled out of the final project, the Italian Olympic Committee (CONI) said Tuesday.

A CONI delegation will visit International Olympic Committee (IOC) headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland on Wednesday to present the bid by Milan -- Italy's financial capital -- and Cortina, a ski resort in the northern Italian Dolomites.

"The flame of hope remains lit," said CONI president Giovanni Malago after a meeting with Secretary of State Giancarlo Giorgetti, who is in charge of sport.

The announcement comes after Giorgetti told the Senate on Tuesday that the three-city proposal "is dead".

"Such an important thing as the Olympic Games should start on the right foot and this wasn't the case. There wasn't agreement so it stops here," said Giorgetti.

It follows infighting between the mayor of Milan Giuseppe Sala and his Turin counterpart Chiara Appendino concerning how the two cities in Italy's industrial north would approach the bid.

Italy has twice hosted the Winter Olympics, in Cortina in 1956 and Turin in 2006, with the 1960 Summer Games held in Rome.

The country has twice pulled out of bids to organise the Summer Olympics in recent years -- in 2020 and 2024.

Preliminary bids for the 2026 Olympics will be presented at IOC meetings in Buenos Aires next month.

© 2018 AFP