The Olympic rings illuminated in white appeared high on the stone stairs behind the stage, flanked by national flags, when one raised the flame in the center of the stage.
The Olympic rings illuminated in white appeared high on the stone stairs behind the stage, flanked by national flags, when one raised the flame in the center of the stage.
This was the first Olympics for Coventry, a two-time Olympic champion in swimming, who watched much of the ceremony alongside Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
Some 12,000 spectators joined the athletes and officials for the closing ceremony, which was much more intimate affair than the opening ceremony starring Mariah Carey and Andrea Bocelli inside Milan’s San Siro soccer stadium, attended by more than 60,000 people.
The Milan Cortina Games spanned an area of 22,000 square kilometers (8,500 square miles), from ice sports in Milan to biathlon in Anterselva on the Austrian border, snowboarding and men’s downhill in Valtellina on the Swiss border, cross-country skiing in the Val di Fiemme north of Verona and women’s downhill, curling and sliding sports in co-host Cortina d’Ampezzo.
The closing ceremony concluded with the Olympic flames extinguished at the unprecedented two caldrons in Milan and Cortina, viewed in Verona via video link. A light show substituted fireworks, which are not allowed in Verona, to protect animals from being disturbed.
The Milan Cortina Paralympics’ opening ceremony will also take place in the Verona Arena, on March 6, and the Games will run until March 15
Translate This Article
