With Multiple Venues, The Milano Cortina Winter Olympic Games Will Have Many Firsts
Starting tomorrow, Feb. 6, and going through Feb. 22, the eyes of the world will be on the XXV Winter Olympic Games, hosted by the cities of Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy.
According to the Olympics website, there will be “more than 3,500 athletes from 93 countries [who] will be competing for 195 medals in 16 Olympic disciplines and six Paralympic sports.”
The Opening Ceremony for the Milano Cortina Winter Games will be broadcast at 2 p.m. (EST) on Friday, Feb. 6, on NBC and streaming on Peacock. Later that evening, at 8 p.m., the Opening Ceremony will be broadcast again.
With these Olympic Games being held in multiple cities in Northern Italy, it is only fitting that the Opening Ceremony reflect that by not being set at a sole location… a first for the Olympics.
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About The Opening Ceremony
Of course, the Opening Ceremony will feature a variety of performances and is expected to be a production that leans into the spectacle of the occasion.
Heightening that spectacle will be the manner in which the Opening Ceremony is produced, with four cities hosting the ceremony:
- Cortina d’Ampezzo;
- Milan;
- Predazzo; and
- Livigno.
Who will be performing at the Opening Ceremony remains a mystery, but the theme of the ceremony will be “harmony.”
For the first time at the Olympics, there will be multiple Olympic cauldrons bearing the Olympic flame, with one cauldron at the Arco della Pace in Milan and the other being at Piazza Dibona in Cortina.
Further, the multiple venues will also ensure that athletes will not have to travel as far for their first competitions prior to and after the Opening Ceremony. The games will be held at 25 different venues throughout the region, making it the most spread out Olympics in history.
With the scale of an event like the Olympics always being in mind, one of the most significant aspects of the Opening Ceremony for the games is the Parade of Nations.
The Parade of Nations finds the best athletes in the world being ushered into the stadium, bearing their respective nation’s flag.
As has become customary, Team USA will be sporting uniforms designed by American fashion designer Ralph Lauren.
Historically, the Olympics have seen nations at war with one another go on to compete against one another.
However, as was the case at the 2024 Paris Olympics, the nations of Russia and Belarus remain banned from the games as a result of the invasion of Ukraine, which began in 2022.
Some athletes from these banned nations will still be able to compete, but not in an official capacity for the nation. Instead, they will compete as “Individual Neutral Athletes.”
Notably, Palestine is allowed to compete in the Olympics, but it has never had a Winter Olympic team.
See the schedule for the sporting events at the Olympics, here.
About The Closing Ceremony
The Closing Ceremony for the Winter Games will be held on Feb. 22 at one of the oldest sporting stadiums in the world, the Verona Arena.
Coverage of this ceremony will begin at 2 p.m. EST on NBC, with an encore presentation at 9 p.m.
Watch the Today Show‘s preview of the Winter Games, here:
