Sawt Falasteen - Italy set for 2026 Winter Olympics opening ceremony

The most geographically dispersed Games in history will start in Italy's economic capital at 1900 GMT with a three-hour extravaganza that takes in the three other sites spread across the Alps and the Dolomites.

While details of the ceremony remain secret, the theme of harmony runs through it, threading together different elements from the financial hub of Milan to the snow-capped mountains of Cortina d'Ampezzo.

And for the first time the 2,900 athletes will parade in the venues closest to where they will compete, in a bid to minimise travel. They will be in Cortina, Livigno and Predazzo.

The opening ceremony is expected to draw a global audience of hundreds of millions and offers "a unique platform to convey positive messages, not divisive ones," creative director Marco Balich promised.

- 'No distractions' -

Balich, who also directed the Turin Winter Games curtain-raiser in 2006, intends to pay tribute to Italian design and fashion, with a special nod to the designer Giorgio Armani, who passed away last year.

He said the ceremony "will tell the story of a young and modern Italy, looking towards the future, without indulging in the Dolce Vita".

American singer Mariah Carey, Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli and Chinese pianist Lang Lang are to perform.

Dozens of dignitaries will attend, including US Vice President JD Vance and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Vance met International Olympic Committee president Kirsty Coventry, who is overseeing her first Games since her election in March, at a dinner for heads of state on Thursday.

The United States hosts the next Olympics, the 2028 Summer Games, in Los Angeles.

Coventry has said she hopes "anything that is distracting from" the Milan-Cortina Olympics will be put aside for the February 6-22 extravaganza.

She was hinting at anger in Italy after it emerged that agents from the US immigration enforcement agency ICE will have an "advisory" role at the Games.

Rome has denied that the agents will have any operational role on its soil.

One of the most prominent US athletes, reigning Olympic snowboard champion Chloe Kim, took apparent aim at President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown as she arrived in Italy.

Kim said in an Instagram post she was proud to represent a country that is "strongest when it embraces diversity, dignity, and hope".

"My parents left South Korea in search of a better future for their family. They left behind everything they knew so that my sisters and I could have the chance to one day live the American dream," she added.

- Speculation surrounds torchbearers -

The Olympic flame reached Milan on Thursday but organisers have tried to keep the identity of the final two torchbearers for the opening ceremony under wraps.

They will simultaneously light two cauldrons inspired by Leonardo da Vinci's knots, one suspended under Milan's Arch of Peace, and the other in Piazza Dibona in Cortina.

On Wednesday, it was reported it would be Alberto Tomba in Milan and Deborah Compagnoni in Cortina, two of Italy's most decorated alpine skiers.

The sports programme has already begun with curling and women's ice hockey, but not without hiccups.

The women's ice hockey tournament experienced a setback when the match between Canada and Finland had to be postponed due to a virus that sidelined four Finnish players, who were suffering from vomiting and diarrhoea.

Other women's games did go ahead, with the USA starting their bid to better their silver medal from the 2022 Beijing Olympics by beating the Czech Republic 5-1.

Meanwhile the biggest star of these Olympics, American skier Lindsey Vonn, will on Friday get a chance to test her injured knee in training for the women's downhill in Cortina.

Vonn's Olympic comeback at the age of 41 was almost derailed after she ruptured an anterior cruciate ligament in a race last week, but she insists she will compete.

S.Abdullah--SF-PST