Sawt Falasteen - Italy set for Winter Olympics opening ceremony as Vonn passes test

The most geographically dispersed Games in history will get underway in Italy's economic capital at 1900 GMT with a three-hour extravaganza that takes in the three other clusters spread across the Alps and the Dolomite mountains.

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.

The 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.

Balich intends to pay tribute to Italian design and fashion, with a special nod to the designer Giorgio Armani, who died last year.

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 held talks with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on Friday, praising the organisation of the Olympics and saying they were "coming together around shared values".

There has been anger in Italy over the presence of agents from the US immigration enforcement agency ICE as part of security for the US delegation, even though the Italian government has said the agents will not have any operational role on its soil.

Hundreds of students from high schools and universities in Milan gathered to protest against ICE.

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 posted on social media that 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.

- Remarkable Vonn -

Vonn, the biggest star at the Milan-Cortina Olympics, successfully completed her first training run for the downhill event, despite competing with a ruptured anterior cruciate ligament in her left knee.

It kept alive the 41-year-old American's hopes of medal glory in Italy.

A top-three placing in Sunday's final would cap a remarkable comeback from retirement that has been elevated to extraordinary by the ACL injury she suffered in a pre-Olympics race.

Wearing a knee brace, Vonn completed the run at Cortina d'Ampezzo without apparent difficulty, shrugging off the delays of more than an hour due to fog.

Before skiing on Friday, she posted on Instagram: "Nothing makes me happier! No one would have believed I would be here... but I made it!! I'm here, I'm smiling and no matter what, I know how lucky I am. I'm not going to waste this chance."

Asked by reporters after the race if everything was "all good", 2010 Olympic champion Vonn responded simply "yeah".

The curling, snowboarding, ice hockey and figure skating competitions have already started.

Defending champions the United States took an early lead in the figure skating team event thanks to world champion ice dancers Madison Chock and Evan Bates.

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 geometric knot patterns, one suspended under Milan's Arch of Peace, and the other in Piazza Dibona in Cortina.

It has been reported that the torchbearers will be Alberto Tomba in Milan and Deborah Compagnoni in Cortina, two of Italy's most decorated alpine skiers.

O.Mousa--SF-PST