MILAN —The Milano Cortina Olympic Games opened Friday night with a ceremony that reflected both their host city, bold and vibrant, and the times in which they will be held.
A 3 1/2 hour opening ceremony that delivered from its opening moments a message of armonia, harmony and peace, and what the International Olympic Committee and local organizers described as the unifying power of the Olympic Games was also punctuated with reminders of the global conflicts that loom in the background of these Games.
“At a time when so much of the world is divided by conflict, your very presence demonstrates that another world is possible,” said Giovanni Malago, the Milano Cortina 2026 president, addressing the athletes. “One of unity, respect and harmony…”Armonia.”
While Team USA was loudly cheered when it entered the San Siro Stadium, the arena erupted in a barrage of boos and whistles when Vice President J.D. Vance was shown on the stadium video screens during the U.S. athletes’ entrance.
The Israeli team was also roundly booed and jeered when it entered the stadium.
The loudest cheers of the night, other than those for the Italian team, came when Ukraine walked into San Siro late in the parade of athletes. Ukraine was invaded by Russia just days after the flame was extinguished on the last Winter Olympics, the 2022 Games in Beijing.
Earlier in the week, IOC president Kirsty Coventry, the first woman and the first African to hold the office, said she hoped Vance, who is attending the Games with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, wouldn’t be booed during the ceremony.
“I hope that the opening ceremony is seen by everyone as an opportunity to be respectful of each other.” Coventry added, “When we went to the (Olympic) village, that is the best reminder of how we should be. You see athletes from every walk of life. No one is asking what country they come from or what religion. They are all just hanging out. … It was a real opportunity to put into perspective how we could be, and so, for me, I hope that the opening ceremony will do that and will be a reminder for everyone how we could be.”
But in addressing the Games athletes in her speech Friday night, Coventry also seemed to be speaking to Vance and by extension President Donald Trump, who has been ever-present this week in Milan even if IOC, U.S. Olympic and Paralympic and LA 28 officials didn’t directly use his name.
“You’ll show us what it means to be human,” Coventry, a two-time Olympic swimming champion, told the athletes. “To dream. To overcome. To respect one another. To care for each other.
“You’ll show us that strength isn’t just about winning – it’s about courage, empathy and heart. You will not only make incredible memories. You will reach your Olympic dreams – and you will show the world how to live.
“This is why we all love the Olympic Games. Because through you, we see the very best of ourselves. You remind us that we can be brave. That we can be kind. And that we can get back up, no matter how hard we fall.”
The opening ceremony for Games that will host 3,500 athletes from 93 nations and come with a $4.7 billion price tag came at the end of a day that saw anti-Trump and anti-Israeli protests in the Olympic city.
Although there were significant patches of the San Siro’s lower sections that remained empty, perhaps the result of tickets that cost as much $2,400, the ceremony was fast paced, innovative and spectacular from its opening moments, connecting all of Milano and Italy’s cultural dots from fashion to film to literature to music. Three actors wearing oversized cartoonish heads portrayed Italian composers Giacomo Puccini, Giuseppe Verdi and Gioachino Rossini tagged along from much of the first half of the production. Mariah Carey delivered a soulful version of “Volare.” Tenor Andrea Bocelli brought the crowd to its feet with a stirring and powerful rendition of Puccini’s “Nessun dorma.”
It was also a ceremony that paid its respects to the tradition, celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Winter Olympics, and Italy’s first Winter Games 70 years ago in Cortina d’Ampezzo.
These Games, Malaga promised, “will be delivered with Spirito Italiano – a contemporary and vibrant Italian spirit – in a unique context of physical and cultural beauty. Indeed, Italian Beauty does not belong to us as a possession but has been entrusted to our hands by history as a responsibility.
“Beauty is more than an aesthetic value. It is an energy that runs under the surface of what we see. It lives only if it is passed on, if it becomes a moral, cultural, and civic force capable of shaping the future.
“Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire.
“Now the Winter Games call upon us to fulfil this duty, transforming that fire into an Olympic flame that lights the way forward, so that future generations inherit not only an extraordinary past, but the strength and courage to build what lies ahead.”
But perhaps the night’s theme was best summed up by a proverb, not from Italy, but Coventry’s native continent.
“In Africa, where I’m from, we have a word: ubuntu,” she said. “It means: I am because we are. That we can only rise by lifting others. That our strength comes from caring for each other.”
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