MILAN (AP) — Featuring planned tributes to da Vinci and Dante, Puccini and Pausini, Armani and Fellini, pasta and vino, and other iconic tastes of Italian culture — plus an appearance by American diva Mariah Carey — an unprecedented four-site, dual-cauldron opening ceremony was getting the Milan Cortina Olympics officially started Friday.
It didn’t exactly feel like a Winter Games as the festivities began at the main hub, Milan’s San Siro soccer stadium, where the temperature was a tad below 50 degrees Fahrenheit (10 degrees Celsius) and the sky was a crisp, clear azure all afternoon. Not a trace of clouds, let alone snow.
The Olympics were returning to a nation that last hosted the sports spectacle 20 years ago. This, though, is the most spread-out Winter Games in history, with competition venues dotting an area of about 8,500 square miles (more than 22,000 square kilometers), roughly the size of the entire state of New Jersey.
Aside from San Siro, which opened a century ago and is home to Serie A soccer titans AC Milan and Inter Milan but is due to be razed and replaced in the next few years, athletes were slated to march in three other places, some carrying their country’s flag: Cortina d’Ampezzo in the heart of the Dolomite mountains; Livigno in the Alps; Predazzo in the autonomous province of Trento.
That allowed up-in-the-mountains sports such as Alpine skiing, bobsled, curling and snowboarding to be represented in the Parade of Nations without requiring folks to make the several-hours-long trek to Milan, the country’s financial capital.
For good measure, the Feb. 22 closing ceremony will be held in yet another locale, Verona, where Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” was set.
Another symbol of how far-flung things are this time: Instead of the usual one cauldron that is lit and burns throughout the Olympics, there will be two, both intended as an homage to Leonardo da Vinci’s geometric studies. One is in Milan, 2½ miles (4 kilometers) from San Siro, and the other is going to be 250 miles (400 kilometers) away in Cortina.
The people given the honor of lighting both was a closely guarded secret, as is usually the case at any Olympics. At the 2006 Turin Games, it was Italian cross-country skier Stefania Belmondo.
Other links to Italy’s heritage scheduled to be a part of Friday’s festivities: a performance by tenor Andrea Bocelli; classically trained dancers from the academy of the famed Milan opera house, Teatro alla Scala; a tribute to the late fashion designer Giorgio Armani, who died last year at 91. A runway walk was to showcase outfits created by Armani in the colors of Italy’s flag: red, green and white.
There were supposed to be references to opera and art, literature and architecture, appreciations for beauty and history and, above all, “La Dolce Vita” (loosely, Italian for “The Good Life” and the name of a 1960 film by Federico Fellini).
Among other segments intended for the show produced by Olympic ceremony veteran Marco Balich were dancers reimagining 18th-century sculptor Antonio Canova’s marble works; people wearing costumes representing composers Giacomo Puccini, Gioachino Rossini and Giuseppe Verdi; and giant red, blue and yellow tubes of paint — the primary colors — floating above the stage before characters symbolizing Italian creativity and legacy paraded through the stadium.
There were going to be references to ancient Rome, the Renaissance, the Venice Carnival and the country’s noted traditions in various areas such as cuisine and literature, such as “Pinocchio” and Dante’s “Inferno.”
Balladeer Laura Pausini was selected to sing Italy’s national anthem in Milan, while a chorus was expected to join from Cortina.
Another local touch: Italian actress Sabrina Impacciatore, of “White Lotus” fame, was to introduce a section that took viewers through a century of past Olympics, with examples of evolving equipment, sportswear and music. And actress and comedian Brenda Lodigiani was invited to demonstrate the popular Italian hand gestures often used to communicate in place of words.
Plenty had been kept under wraps by organizers who said they sought to convey themes of harmony and peace, seeking to represent the city-mountain dichotomy of the particularly unusual setup for these Olympics while also trying to appeal to a sense of unity at a time of global tensions.
Another unknown: What sort of reception would greet U.S. Vice President JD Vance when he attended the ceremony in Milan? And what about the American athletes?
When new International Olympic Committee President Kirsty Coventry was asked this week what sort of greeting the U.S. delegation would get when they enter San Siro in the Parade of Nations, she replied: “I hope the opening ceremony is seen by everyone as an opportunity to be respectful.”
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Associated Press writer Colleen Barry contributed to this report.
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AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics
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