The real attraction of the Milan-Cortina Olympics? The bidet! Foreign athletes and journalists are obsessed with it

The Milan-Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics have found a new involuntary protagonist, an entity that does not like the limelight and which promptly, like a sort of Ghost of Christmas Past, returns to the center of international discourse and takes center stage, succeeding in the not simple feat of questioning the most unshakable certainties, diplomatic relations built over time and the national identity of an entire country.

We agree, the bidet is nothing more than part of the furniture, a normal object of common use, as banal for the Italian as it is intelligible for the foreigner, and precisely this ambiguous nature determines a symbolic strength that escapes those who dismiss it as a simple hygienic accessory (when and if recognized). It is a humble and silent object, devoid of grandeur, but capable of unmasking habits, fears and cultural tics better than a thousand sociological treatises. We ignore it with the ease of those who grew up with that porcelain next to the toilet, convinced that the whole world does the same, the others, those who do not see and do not know, prisoners of a no longer justifiable myopia, observe it as one looks at a recently unearthed archaeological find, wondering what type of civilization gave birth to it.

And so, among the Olympic corridors of Milan-Cortina 2026, the bidet returns to doing what it does best, that is, expressing an extraordinary and natural ability to divide, entertain, irritate and intrigue, exactly what happened to the American delegation.

“How do you use the bidet?”

Catalyzing the debate is Alicia Lewis, reporter and anchorwoman of Kare 11, a Minneapolis TV station, who decided to tell her followers, over 15 thousand, about her experience with the bidet. In the videos published on Instagram since her arrival in Italy, the journalist appeared slightly disoriented, always accompanied by a good dose of self-irony, and managed, once again, to transform a simple healthcare worker into a media case.

“I promised to be completely transparent about everything I would experience here,” he says in the video above, shortly before taking viewers on a sort of mini-tour of his room’s bathroom. He first points to the toilet, recognizable and familiar, then focuses on the object next to it. «I thought it was the bidet, and it probably is», he explains, «but the water flows downwards to fill the basin. I imagined that in a bidet it would have to rise upwards. Maybe it’s a urinal? I know, it sounds absurd…”.

But she is by no means the only one surprised by the presence of the bidet in the Olympic village. Various foreign athletes also showed their amazement.

Bidet, this unknown (to too many)

The doubts expressed by the American journalist immediately trigger contrasting reactions, a case now consolidated when it comes to ours. In a few minutes the post bounced around platforms and profiles, becoming viral and putting the bidet back at the center of the village. In the comments, users alternate ready to provide detailed explanations on the use of the bidet and others convinced that it is an artfully designed provocation.

One could lean towards the latter hypothesis, because in the social era everything is done in order to get likes and dislikes, and it seems really unlikely that a journalist used to traveling doesn’t know about the bidet. Or, putting aside for a moment the disillusionment that permeates adult life, we could accept the truth that is proposed to us and think back to Corrado Guzzanti’s words, coming to the conclusion that perhaps he was right.