Mariah Carey will be singing in Italian at the opening ceremony of the 2026 Winter Olympics. Andrea Bocelli will belt out arias in Italian, English, French and Spanish, duetting with Chris Stapleton and Colombia’s Karol G.
But for all of the organizers’ efforts to create a global-village vibe, America’s expanding political and ideological war could cast a pall on the Milan Cortina Olympics which are kicking off tomorrow.
Geopolitical tensions were stirred up prior to the Feb. 6-22 Games after U.S. officials confirmed that ICE agents would be deployed in Italy to protect Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who are expected to attend the opening ceremony.
The prospect of ICE policing Milan’s San Siro Stadium following the killings of U.S. citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, on the streets of Minneapolis sparked local outrage. The city’s leftist Mayor Giuseppe Sala flatly declared they are “not welcome.”
Though Italy’s interior minister, Matteo Piantedosi, underscored that ICE “will have no external public order function,” opposition politicians in Parliament have been thundering against the right-wing government for allowing ICE in. Leftist Sen. Ivan Scalfarotto sarcastically asked “who will escort” the four skiers representing Iran? He was told it won’t be Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, who recently killed thousands of protesters.
Another opposition member facetiously wondered whether Russia’s notorious Wagner Group mercenaries would provide security for the 13 Russian athletes set to compete as “Individual Neutral Athletes,” meaning they won’t represent their country. Russia has been banned from the Olympics ever since it invaded Ukraine in February 2022. Russian skiers and lugers at the Games won’t be displaying a national identity with team colors, a flag or an anthem and will not be part of the two-and-a-half-hour opening ceremony.
Veteran Olympic ceremonies wizard Marco Balich tells Variety the ceremony will be a “somber” affair. But it won’t lack for style. While the 2028 Summer Olympics ceremony in Los Angeles will no doubt be packed with Hollywood stars, Italy’s global luminaries emanate from the fashion world. So the Milan Cortina opener will celebrate Milan as a fashion capital, highlighted by a tribute to legendary couturier Giorgio Armani, who died at 91 last September.
It’s going to be “a very emotional moment,” says Balich, as Italians celebrate one of their heroes.
The Milan Cortina Games will also be the most spread-out Olympics ever. Besides airing from Milan, the curtain-raiser will beam from three Alpine venues — Cortina d’Ampezzo, Livigno and Predazzo — to a global audience estimated at more than 2 billion viewers. In the U.S., the Games will get full-court-press treatment from NBC and Peacock. In Europe, HBO Max will stream the competition alongside local broadcasters. Media outlets large and small have a lot riding on audiences showing up.
“The Olympics are not just sports. They are really a major entertainment event where the world kind of stops,” says JB Perrette, Warner Bros. Discovery chief of global streaming.
Balich says assembling the multiple-location opening ceremony has been a “nightmare”; the challenge is to maintain momentum as the action switches from place to place. There will be two Olympic cauldrons: one in Milan, the other in Cortina.
As for American representation, the U.S. will be fielding its largest Winter Olympics team ever, with 232 athletes including Lindsey Vonn, whose comeback attempt at age 41 is being threatened by a knee injury, and snowboarder Chloe Kim, who is seeking a historic third straight Olympic gold.
China will be fretting over freestyle skier Eileen Gu, who fell short of gold at the Beijing Games four years ago. Gu, who was born in California, has chosen again to compete for China instead of the U.S., despite previous backlash. Balich and other Olympic leaders already have their hands full maintaining order at a time of rising belligerence. And given the level of volatility coursing through the world right now, there’s no question that organizers will be on high alert until the flag comes down at the closing ceremony.
“It’s very important,” Balich says, “that we use this platform to send a message that to stand for peace is crucial.”
