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MILAN — Four locations, one Olympic heartbeat.
For the first time in Olympic Games history, Friday’s opening ceremony unfolded across multiple locations in northern Italy, the culmination of more than 700 hours of rehearsal and 1,200 performers from ages 10 to 70, officially enshrining a month-long sports festival that will capture worldwide attention.
In the San Siro Stadium in Milan, and the town center in Cortina d’Ampezzo, the snowboard and freestyle skiing venue in Livigno, and the ski jumping stadium in Predazzo, Italy celebrated “Armonia,” a narrative designed to unite territories, people and values with a shared vision. The sentiment at San Siro carried a breathtakingly cinematic artistic show highlighting the host country, including a torch relay performance by tenor Andrea Bocelli and culminating with the lighting of two cauldrons in the two main host cities, Milan and Cortina.
Athletes from each country participated in the ceremony from whichever venue was closest to where they would compete, another first that eliminated potential logistical travel nightmares and celebratory fatigue. Instead, it was presented as the embodiment of another key principle of armonia: building connections in an often fragmented world.
On a night when nationalism was on full display, Ukraine’s athlete contingent drew considerable applause from the Milan crowd, who were each given light-up wristbands to make the stadium glow. The United States athletes, a large group led by speedskater Erin Jackson, also received a rousing welcome. Though vice president JD Vance — who was in attendance with his wife, Usha — received a smattering of boos when shown on the video board.
The French and their athletes were another crowd favorite, though unsurprisingly, nothing topped the Italians. Wearing black jackets with red, white and green on the cuffs and white winter hats with “Italia” emblazoned on the front, Italy had by far the biggest group of athletes. It was followed on stage by a few dozen Olympic volunteers, who danced along and sent the crowd — celebrating its first Italian Olympics since Turin in 2006 — to its feet.
In the first Winter Olympics with fans in eight years due to pandemic restrictions, Italian president Sergio Mattarella spoke of uniting values, friendship and respect, and said this year’s Games are “the most gender balanced ever.”
Speaking in Italian with three different subtitles shown on video boards throughout the stadium, Mattarella — who received rousing ovations — reminded the crowd that sports are a universal language and “unity is possible.” The message resonated all night, from the symbolic lines portraying a circle as the main stage to the actress and U.N. ambassador Charlize Theron delivering a message of peace from her South African compatriot Nelson Mandela.
The Milan ceremony began with a video tribute to Italian beauty and the 18th-century sculptor Antonio Canova, followed by 70 ballet dancers clad in white and surrounded by large ancient Roman statues. The dance morphed into a kaleidoscope of colors, with giant blue, red and yellow paint tubes pouring out the corresponding fabric at the feet of clusters of dancers. Those dancers also paid homage to a trio of opera maestros — Giuseppe Verdi, Giacomo Puccini, and Gioachino Rossini — who each represented a distinct era of Italian music.
The performers surrounded acclaimed pop artist Mariah Carey, who donned an all-white Fausto Puglisi dress while she sang Domenico Modugno’s “Nel Blu, dipinto di Blu” and “Nothing is Impossible.”
Materalla, being shown in the grandstand, kicked off the formal portion of the ceremony, which included singer-songwriter Laura Pausini singing the national anthem. As the crowd lit up in Italy’s colors, the country had performers representing the mountains and the city to show the harmony between them.
Aerial actors perform during the opening ceremony at Milan’s San Siro Stadium. The theme of the night was “harmony.” (Matthias Hangst / Getty Images)
Two giant gold rings, each containing one performer, rose from the ceiling, and the pair joined in midair. The rings began to multiply until they joined together into the iconic Olympic rings to set up the parade of athletes.
Beginning with Greece, athletes entered through a giant lit-up gold ring on the ground. They walked behind their respective flag bearers and a placard with the country’s name on the main stage, designed to look like a block of ice. Five large televisions showed the other three ceremonies simultaneously.
The U.S. entered ahead of only France and Italy — the last and current Olympic hosts. The Americans across the ceremonies were decked out in the same festive Ralph Lauren outfits, which included a winter-white wool coat with heritage-inspired wooden toggles (Jackson was the only deviation in navy), an American flag intarsia wool turtleneck and tailored wool trousers. Athletes also wore red, white and blue hats, mittens, a leather belt and brown suede boots with red laces.
After Mattarella’s speech, International Olympic committee president Kirsty Coventry took the podium before Mattarella officially declared the Games open from the stands.
When the flames were lit, the final torchbearers in Milan were the celebrated Alpine skiers Alberto Tomba and Deborah Compagnoni. In Cortina, the spherical floating hearth was lit by another Alpine star, Sofia Goggia.
The cauldrons’ intricate design pays homage to Leonardo da Vinci’s knotted designs, and the pair will remain accessible to the public throughout the Games.
In Cortina, a small-town parade feel
For several hours Friday night, spectators, volunteers and other visitors gathered around the main square next to the Basilica dei Santi Filippo e Giacomo, trying to figure out what would happen in the northeastern capital of these Olympics — and the site of the entire Winter Games in 1956.
There was nothing that screamed big event other than a light increase in security and some extra barricades. Around 6:30 p.m., 90 minutes before the opening ceremony’s start, the sort of parade that happens in countless towns on one holiday or another began.
Members of about two dozen local Cortina organizations tromped up the Corso Italia to a smattering of cheers. There was a clump of marchers in Krampus costumes. There was a band. It was all sorts of sweet. Then a D.J. appeared.
Finally, at 8 p.m., the actual opening ceremony started to beam in from Milan. The town square in Cortina remained dead. It was another half-hour before something local happened — the raising of the Italian flag.
The American athlete contingent walks along the Corso Italia in Cortina d’Ampezzo during Friday’s opening ceremony. (Mattia Ozbot / Getty Images)
Then, the simultaneous marching of athletes got underway. It was an awfully nice attempt to include athletes from all locations in what organizers decided to call the first “widespread Olympics.” However, most teams at the Winter Games are small to begin with.
When they are divided four ways, they get noticeably small, especially when athletes decide to rest and take a pass on competitions over the weekend. And with that, the Olympic opening ceremony, one of the grandest events the modern world stages, evolved into a collection of high school homecoming parades.
Also, since nations are only allowed at most two flagbearers — one man and one woman — most countries in Cortina marched with only a sign rather than a flag. That was a miss. Flags make the Olympics.
It was a good effort; there were likely a couple of thousand people lining the streets and filling the square. It was a beautiful night in a beautiful city, and maybe it worked on television. In person, it all felt a bit small.
In Livigno, solo athletes get a moment to shine
Maybe 2,000 or so gathered at the base of the Livigno Snow Park’s four courses — snowboard cross, slopestyle, parallel giant slalom and big air — with the park’s steep halfpipe lit up and looking over the crowd.
Walking under a single Olympic ring extending above the base of the parallel giant slalom course, large packs of Aussies, Austrians, Canadians, Americans, and, finally, Italians drew cheers from fans sprawled out in front of them.
The more jarring view was that of the individual athletes making solo appearances in these Games, entering a stage of such scale armed with only a sign, a flag and perhaps a guest or two.
There was Kenyan Alpine skier Issa Gachingiri Laborde Dit Pere, the son of a French ski patrol rescuer and a Kenyan mother. Before making the walk in Livigno, the 18-year-old said, “A wave of pride comes over, just thinking about where my mom comes from.”
Kenya’s Issa Gachingiri Laborde Dit Pere is one of several lone representatives of their country at these Winter Olympics. (Kirill Kudryavtsev / AFP via Getty Images)
There was Shannon-Ogbnai Abeda, the lone entry in the Games from the East African nation of Eritrea, who appeared in two previous Olympics and nearly retired at age 29 before changing his mind and returning to training 10 months ago.
For the fourth time, Muhammad Karim, who grew up determined to ski in the Karakoram mountains and learned on wooden planks made by his uncle, arrived at an opening ceremony carrying the Pakistani flag.
Of the single arrivals in Livigno, none drew a bigger cheer than Rafael Mini. The 17-year-old might sound very Italian. Mini, competing in slalom and giant slalom events, hails from San Marino, the second-smallest independent microstate in Italy, one covering only 25 square miles of the Apennine Mountains.
No Olympian from Vatican City was introduced at any point in the night.
In Predazzo, the Olympics feel local
These mountain towns are small — Predazzo has a population of approximately 4,500 — and many volunteers and spectators were born and raised in the region, where the Avisio River cuts through the mountains, connecting a string of towns in the Val di Fiemme.
“It’s wonderful, honestly,” said Daniel Morandini, who showed up to the opening ceremony with his girlfriend before running into a few friends. Predazzo has hosted international ski jumping competitions before, “but this one is special,” he said.
Predazzo’s opening ceremony took place in the shadow of the ski jumping venue. (Alex Pantling / Getty Images)
Fans spent much of the opening ceremony in the stands as temperatures outside dropped to just about freezing, watching the Milan proceedings on two screens. The two seemed small when dwarfed by the ski jumps.
The procession of countries energized the crowd, a mix of locals and family and friends of athletes. Of course, there were fans of the nations with high hopes in ski jumping and cross-country skiing: Norway, Sweden, Slovenia and Japan. American and Canadian parents came prepared with flags featuring their athletes’ faces — surely just a taste of what’s to come.
Yet this crowd was happy to cheer for anyone. And smaller nations like Chile and Venezuela also received support from the crowd as they crossed under the massive golden arch at the bottom of the ski jump.
“We are saying, ‘Predazzo is in the center of the world today,”’ Morandini said with a laugh. “It’s not really, but kind of.”
Matthew Futterman in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Brendan Quinn in Livigno and Rebecca Tauber in Predazzo contributed reporting.
