Milan-Cortina fingers over flag to French Alps for 2030 Winter Olympics

[ad_1] The Milan Cortina Olympics ended Sunday with a closing ceremony paying tribute to Italian dance and music inside the traditional Verona Enviornment, roughly mid-distance between the far-flung mountain, valley and metropolis venues that made these probably the most spread-out Winter Video games in Olympic historical past.

Some 1,500 Olympians filed into the sector waving small nationwide flags to a rousing medley of Italian pop hits from the twentieth century as the gang sang alongside, taking their seats within the stone area in locations marked by inexperienced, purple and white lights for the Italian flag.

Norway topped the ultimate medal rely with 18 golds and 41 medals general — greatest in each classes. France gained 23 medals in whole.

The 2½-hour ceremony opened with a whimsical tribute to Italian lyric opera, with the stage director rousing not solely the closing ceremony forged, together with Italian singer Achille Lauro, but in addition long-dormant opera characters tucked away in crates throughout the amphitheater's tunnels.

Singer Joan Thiele performs throughout the closing ceremony of the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Verona, Italy, Sunday, February 22, 2026. © Ashley Landis, AP On stage, Madama Butterfly in a shiny pink and inexperienced costume and Aida in golden tiers had been unpacked from mirrored crates whereas seventeenth century musicians performed the joyous “Libiamo ne’ lieti calici” from La Traviata, a nod to the Enviornment's lengthy historical past because the venue for a summer time opera pageant.

The opera characters, led by the jester Rigoletto, spilled out into the piazza outdoors, mixing with the bemused athletes who had been flag-bearers for his or her nations, some ofwhom pulled out their telephones to movie.

In a key second, the Olympic flame encased in a Venetian glass vessel was carried into the Enviornment by Italian gold medalists from the 1994 Lillehammer Video games. The Olympic rings illuminated in white appeared excessive on the stone stairs behind the stage, flanked by nationwide flags, when one raised the flame within the middle of the stage.

That is the primary Video games for the Worldwide Olympic Committee president, Kirsty Coventry, a two-time Olympic champion in swimming, who watched the ceremony alongside Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.

Some 12,000 spectators joined the athletes and officers for the closing ceremony, which was far more intimate affair than the opening ceremony starring Mariah Carey and Andrea Bocelli inside Milan’s San Siro soccer stadium, attended by greater than 60,000 folks.

A performer participates within the closing ceremony of the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Verona, Italy, Sunday, February 22, 2026. © Natacha Pisarenko, AP One of many key moments of the ceremony is when the Olympic flag is handed over to the subsequent Winter Video games host nation, France, and its flag is raised subsequent to Italy’s and Greece’s.

The Milan Cortina Video games spanned an space of twenty-two,000 sq. kilometers (8,500 sq. miles), from ice sports activities in Milan to biathlon in Anterselva on the Austrian border, snowboarding and males’s downhill in Valtellina on the Swiss border, cross-country snowboarding within the Val di Fiemme north of Verona and girls’s downhill, curling and sliding sports activities in co-host Cortina d’Ampezzo.

It’s a mannequin that may stay for future Video games, to keep away from the expense of constructing new amenities. The 2030 Winter Video games within the French Alps will stage occasions within the Alps and Good, on the Mediterranean Sea, whereas speedskating will likely be held overseas in a venue to be determined.

Athletes from the US attend the closing ceremony of the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Verona, Italy, Sunday, February 22, 2026. © Natacha Pisarenko, AP The closing ceremony will conclude with the Olympic flames being extinguished on the unprecedented two caldrons in Milan and Cortina, to be considered by way of video hyperlink. A light-weight present will substitute fireworks, which aren't allowed in Verona, to guard animals from being disturbed. A complete of 116 medal occasions have been held in eight Olympic sports activities throughout 16 disciplines, together with the debut of ski mountaineering this yr, over the course of 17 days of competitors.

The Milan Cortina Paralympics' opening ceremony will even happen within the Verona Enviornment, on March 6, and the Video games will run till March 15.