Winter Olympics kick off with pageantry at four sites in Italy

The Milan Cortina Winter Olympics formally kicked off Friday with exuberant opening ceremonies, where pledges of sportsmanship and peaceful international competition came against the backdrop of a fraying world order.

At the ceremonies’ climax, Alberto Tomba and Deborah Compagnoni, two Italian skiing legends, lit the Olympic cauldron in Milan, while skier Sofia Goggia, who will be competing at these Games, lit the cauldron in Cortina d’Ampezzo.

At the main ceremony in Milan, athletes entered behind their national flags in the lengthy Parade of Nations. And there were three other athlete parades, too, in the far-flung host sites for these Games: Cortina, Predazzo and Livigno, all in the Italian Alps.

Greece, as the founder of the Games, entered first, and Italy, as the current host, was last, with each country’s name-card carrier outfitted in an elegant, expansive silver puffer coat and dark eyeglasses. Hosts of the coming Olympics entered just before Italy – meaning that the large American team marched right after Venezuela, the country whose leader the Trump administration seized in a recent military operation. The U.S. team received a mixed reception, and when Vice President JD Vance showed up on the jumbo screen in the stadium, some jeers were heard.

Scattered protests took place in Milan, including one opposing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, whose personnel are in Italy to advise its security forces during the Games. Another was outside the San Siro, in one of Milan’s poorest neighborhoods, over high prices and a lack of affordable housing.

The U.S. flag-bearers for the opening ceremony in Milan were Olympic champion speedskater Erin Jackson and bobsledder Frank Del Duca.

Jackson, a three-time Olympian from Ocala, Florida, is the reigning Olympic gold medalist in the 500 meters, and in 2022 in Beijing she became the first Black woman to win an individual gold medal at a Winter Games. Del Duca, from Bethel, Maine, is a two-time Olympian and a sergeant in the U.S. Army. Fellow athletes from the U.S. team chose Jackson and Del Duca in a vote.

Some Olympic powerhouses, like the United States and Canada, sent more than 200 athletes each to Italy for the Winter Olympics. Other delegations were much smaller.

Malaysia’s entire contingent is one athlete: Aruwin Salehhuddin, a 21-year-old Alpine skier. At the opening ceremony, she alone hoisted the Jalur Gemilang, the name for the Malaysian flag that means “Stripes of Glory.”

“It’s pretty heavy!” she said.

Malaysia is one of 15 nations fielding just one athlete. The list includes other Alpine skiers from Eritrea and Pakistan; cross-country skiers from Malta and Nigeria; and a solitary skeleton athlete from Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory that competes in the Olympics under its own flag and National Olympic Committee.

Africa has more entrants at this Winter Olympics than ever before. There will be 15 athletes from eight countries.

The final delegation of the night, the home team Italy, entered the stadium to sustained cheers. Italian flag-bearer Federica Brignone is an Alpine skiing superstar who almost didn’t make it to the Olympics: She endured multiple fractures in her left leg and tore her ACL while racing in April 2025. Even at less than 100%, she remains a threat in her favored events, the giant slalom and the super G.

American singer Mariah Carey had helped get the show started at San Siro stadium, a century-old landmark in Milan, singing in Italian “Nel Blu Dipinto di Blu,” better known as “Volare.” Andrea Bocelli performed the ceremonial standard “Nessun Dorma,” which Luciano Pavarotti sang at the 2006 Turin Games. Italian rapper Ghali also took to the stage, and Cecilia Bartoli and Lang Lang combined on the Olympic anthem.

Marco Balich, the creative director of the ceremonies, had said they were partly “a tribute to Italy, its culture and creativity, its beauty and imagination.” The opening section was about the greatest works of Italian culture; two dancers, one wearing angel wings, represented sculptor Antonio Canova’s “Psyche Revived by Cupid’s Kiss,” a statue depicting the two mythical figures in a passionate embrace.

Three actors took the stage wearing huge bobbleheads meant to be Giuseppe Verdi, Giacomo Puccini and Gioachino Rossini – three of Italy’s greatest composers – and the music at that point was inspired by some of their operatic masterpieces.

One segment of the show was called “City and Mountain,” with groups of performers representing bustling, industrial Milan and the beautiful ski resort of Cortina. Giovanni Andrea Zanon, the violinist, played a 1716 Stradivari as dancers representing the city and mountains alternated between collapsing to the floor and pirouetting. Five huge, gold rings came together above the stage to form the Olympic logo.

The Olympic flag was carried in with even more pomp than the flags in the athletes’ parade. Its bearers were an international crew, including marathon champ Eliud Kipchoge of Kenya; Tadatoshi Akiba, a former mayor of Hiroshima, Japan; Brazilian gymnast Rebeca Andrade; and Pita Taufatofua, the oiled-up, bare-chested athlete from Tonga who created a stir at the opening ceremonies in 2016, 2018 and 2021. He was wearing a black shirt and coat on Friday.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.