MILAN (AP) – Featuring tributes to da Vinci and Dante, Puccini and Pausini, Armani and Fellini, pasta and vino and other iconic flavors of Italian culture, Mariah Carey hits the high notes with “Nel Blu Dipinto Di Blu,” also known as “Volare.” Four unprecedented sitesdouble pot opening ceremony got the milancortina olympics It officially started on Friday.
Allow athletes to participate in international parades held in mountainous areas. The most extensive winter games Historically, there have been perhaps unintended consequences. No competitors from any of the first five countries actually showed up in Milan, the main hub. San Siro soccer stadium.
Signs bearing the names of Greece, Albania, Andorra, Saudi Arabia and Argentina, which are always at the front of the procession as the birthplace of the Olympic Games, were brought to the home of Serie A soccer powerhouses AC Milan and Inter Milan, but there were no players from those regions around, instead taking part in simultaneous celebrations in Cortina d’Ampezzo in the heart of the Dolomites, Livigno in the Alps and Predazzo in the autonomous region. Trent’s.
Armenia was the first country to have athletes at the San Siro, and their entrance was met with loud cheers from the packed crowd of 61,000 ticket holders and others.
Afterwards, at the ceremony in Milan, the four Israeli representatives were met with some booing. There are also calls for Israel to be banned from the Olympics over the Gaza war. It started In October 2023, there was a deadly Hamas attack.
Cheers went up when the players from America appeared, Vice President JD Vance There were jeers when his image briefly appeared on the arena’s video board from his position at the tribune.
Organizers of the ceremony said they sought to convey themes of harmony and peace, depicting the dichotomy of cities and mountains in the particularly unusual setting of the Olympics, and appealing to a sense of unity at a time of global tension.
Asked this week about the likely reaction from spectators, Kirsty Coventry, the new president of the International Olympic Committee, said: “I hope everyone will take the opening ceremony as an opportunity to pay respect.”
Naturally, the loudest greeting was from host country Italy, which began reading the electronic version of “The Barber of Seville.”
One symbol of how far-flung the Games are is that instead of the usual single cauldron, which is lit and burns throughout the Olympic period, there will be two cauldrons, both intended to pay homage to Leonardo da Vinci’s geometric studies. One in Milan, 4 km (2.5 miles) from San Siro, and the other in Cortina, 400 km (250 miles) away.
Those who were given the honor of lighting the lights after a ceremony expected to last nearly three hours were, as is usual at any Olympics, a closely guarded secret. The 2006 Torino Games was won by Italian cross-country skier Stefania Belmondo.
All competition venues over the next two weeks are spread over an area of approximately 8,500 square miles (more than 22,000 square kilometers), roughly the size of the entire state of New Jersey. Ceremonies in several cities on Friday allowed mountain sports, including: alpine skiing, bobsled, curling and snowboarding People can become representatives without having to travel several hours to Milan.
There was nothing quite like the Winter Olympics in the country’s financial capital, with temperatures just below 50 degrees Fahrenheit (10 degrees Celsius) and skies a clear deep blue throughout Friday afternoon. There is no sign of clouds, let alone snow.
Produced by Olympic ceremony veteran Marco Baric, the show began as Italy welcomed the world with a display of symbols of its heritage. academy dancers of the famous Milan opera house La Scala A reimagining of the marble works of 18th century sculptor Antonio Canova.
As people wearing oversized mascot-like heads representing opera composers Giacomo Puccini, Gioachino Rossini and Giuseppe Verdi took center stage, giant tubes of paint floated into the air and dropped silk threads in the primary colors red, blue and yellow before an initial parade of multi-colored characters arrived at the stadium. They represented an appreciation for music and art, literature and architecture, beauty and history, and above all “La Dolce Vita” (meaning “The Good Life” in Italian and the name of a 1960 film by Federico Fellini).
There were references to ancient Rome, the Renaissance, the Venetian Carnival, and the country’s famous traditions in various fields such as cuisine and literature, including “Pinocchio” and Dante’s “Inferno.”
The runway walk showcased costumes created by the late fashion designer. Giorgio Armani passed away last year 91 years old – in the colors of the Italian flag, red, green and white. Ballad singer Laura Pausini then sang the Italian national anthem.
When Carey sang in Italian, there was a huge cheer in Milan. Hundreds of fans sang along with her in Cortina, and there was a roar when they realized she was performing the song with the refrain of “Volare”.
Another local touch. Italian actress Sabrina Impacciatore, of “White Lotus” fame, led a segment that took viewers through the past century of Olympic Games, with examples of evolving equipment, sportswear, and music. And actress and comedian Brenda Rodigiani was invited to demonstrate a popular hand gesture in Italy that is often used to communicate in place of words.
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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
