The Milan Cortina Olympics ended Sunday as the dual flames in co-host cities Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo have been extinguished as a part of a closing ceremony inside the traditional Verona Area, roughly mid-distance between the far-flung mountain, valley and metropolis venues that made these essentially the most unfold-out Winter Games ever.
In declaring the 2026 Games over, Worldwide Olympic Committee President Kirsty Coventry informed native organizers that they “delivered a brand new type of winter video games and also you set a brand new, very excessive normal for the long run.”
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 12 months, over the course of 17 days of competitors.
The closing ceremony paid tribute to Italian dance and music — from lyric opera to Italian pop of the twentieth century to the DJ beat of Gabry Ponte, who obtained the 1,500 athletes on their ft for an upbeat dance quantity whereas color confetti exploded on stage.
Earlier, the 2026 Winter 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, crimson and white lights for the Italian flag.
The Canadian Olympic Committee mentioned roughly 90 of Canada’s 207 athletes in Milan Cortina marched within the closing ceremony, with speedskater Valérie Maltais and brief-monitor speedskater Steven Dubois carrying the Canadian flag into the stadium.
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The two 1/2-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 additionally lengthy-dormant opera characters tucked away in crates throughout the amphitheatre’s tunnels.
On stage, Madama Butterfly in a vivid pink and inexperienced costume and Aida in golden tiers have been unpacked from mirrored crates whereas seventeenth century musicians performed the joyous “Libiamo ne’ lieti calici” from La Traviata, a nod to the Area’s lengthy historical past because the venue for a summer time opera competition.
The opera characters, led by the jester Rigoletto, spilled out into the piazza exterior, mixing with the bemused athletes who have been flag-bearers for his or her international locations, 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 Area by Italian gold medallists from the 1994 Lillehammer 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 centre of the stage.
This was the primary Olympics for Coventry, a two-time Olympic champion in swimming, who watched a lot of the ceremony alongside Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
Some 12,000 spectators joined the athletes and officers for the closing ceremony, which was rather 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 individuals.
Key moments included the Olympic flag is handed over to the subsequent Winter Games host nation, France.
The Milan Cortina Games spanned an space of twenty-two,000 sq. kilometres (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-nation 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 can stay for future Games, to keep away from the expense of constructing new services. The 2030 Winter Games within the French Alps will stage occasions within the Alps and Good, on the Mediterranean Sea, whereas speedskating can be held overseas in a venue to be determined.
The closing ceremony concluded with the Olympic flames extinguished on the unprecedented two cauldrons in Milan and Cortina, seen in Verona by way of video hyperlink. A light-weight present substituted fireworks, which aren’t allowed in Verona, to defend animals from being disturbed.
The Milan Cortina Paralympics’ opening ceremony will even happen within the Verona Area, on March 6, and the Games will run till March 15.
© 2026 The Canadian Press
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