Winter Olympics closing ceremony celebrates athletes, Italian artwork at historical Roman amphitheater

The Milan Cortina Olympics ended Sunday with a closing ceremony inside Verona Enviornment, an historical Roman amphitheater that sits roughly mid-distance between the far-flung mountain, valley and metropolis venues that made these essentially the most spread-out Winter Video games in Olympic historical past.

The 2½-hour ceremony celebrated Italian music and dance, each traditional and up to date, headlining internationally acclaimed ballet dancer Roberto Bolle together with standard Italian singer Achille Lauro and DJ Gabry Ponte.

Some 1,500 Olympians, a bit over half those that competed within the Video games, paraded into the monument constructed within the first century for gladiator fights and unique animal hunts.

They entered en masse behind a pair of flag bearers from every of the 92 taking part nations, together with biathlete Lisa Vittozzi and speedskater Davide Ghiotto for host Italy, and hockey participant Hilary Knight and ice dancer Evan Bates for the USA – all gold medal winners.

The US fielded its greatest Winter Olympics crew ever for the 2026 Milano Cortina Video games, with 232 athletes competing, and broke the document for Group USA’s most gold medals at a single Winter Video games. The U.S. was one among solely two nations to compete in all 16 sport disciplines, together with host Italy, based on the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee.

“These Video games showcased the easiest of Group USA: resilience, unity and a relentless pursuit of excellence,” mentioned USOPC CEO Sarah Hirshland mentioned in an announcement. “Our athletes delivered a very historic efficiency, incomes a Group USA-record 12 gold medals and creating moments that can encourage the subsequent technology … That momentum now carries us ahead as we stay up for Los Angeles in 2028, the place we’re excited to construct on this legacy and welcome the world to our dwelling soil.” 

Some 12,000 spectators joined the athletes and officers for the closing ceremony. It was far more intimate than the opening ceremony, which starred Mariah Carey and Andrea Bocelli inside Milan’s San Siro soccer stadium, attended by greater than 60,000 individuals.

The ceremony celebrated Italian lyric opera, which has been acknowledged by the U.N. cultural company UNESCO as a worldwide treasure, but in addition pay tribute to up to date Italian classics. Each opera and dance are at dwelling within the stone amphitheater, which every summer season hosts a preferred opera competition with lavish productions and the gala dance efficiency titled Roberto Bolle and Pals.

A part of the ceremony included a somber remembrance of athletes who’ve died, though the commemoration, stuffed with butterfly imagery, didn’t determine particular athletes. 

Earlier within the 2026 Winter Video games, the Worldwide Olympic Committee stored Ukrainian skeleton athlete Vladyslav Heraskevych out of competitors after he refused a last-minute plea from the IOC for him to not use a helmet that honors athletes killed in Russia’s warfare on his nation. The helmet goes towards a rule about making political statements on the Olympic area of play, based on the IOC. 

“Nobody, particularly me, is disagreeing with the messaging, it is a highly effective message, it is a message of remembrance, of reminiscence,” IOC President Kirsty Coventry advised reporters on the time, based on the Reuters information company. The problem was to discover a answer for the sphere of play.”

This was the primary Video games for Coventry, a two-time Olympic champion in swimming, who oversaw the ceremony alongside Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.

One of many key moments of the ceremony is when the Olympic flag is handed over to the subsequent Winter Video games host nation, France, and its flag is raised subsequent to Italy’s and Greece’s.

The Milan Cortina Video games spanned an space of 8,500 sq. mile, from ice sports activities in Milan to biathlon in Anterselva on the Austrian border, snowboarding and males’s downhill in Valtellina on the Swiss border, cross-country snowboarding within the Val di Fiemme north of Verona and girls’s downhill, curling and sliding sports activities in co-host Cortina d’Ampezzo.

It is a mannequin that can stay for future Video games, to keep away from the expense of constructing new services. The 2030 Winter Video games within the French Alps will stage occasions within the Alps and Good, on the Mediterranean Sea, whereas speedskating shall be held overseas in a venue to be determined.

The closing ceremony concluded with the Olympic flames being extinguished on the unprecedented two cauldrons in Milan and Cortina, to be considered by way of video hyperlink. A lightweight present will substitute fireworks, which aren’t allowed in Verona, to guard animals from being disturbed.

A complete of 116 medal occasions have been held in eight Olympic sports activities throughout 16 disciplines, together with the debut of ski mountaineering this yr, over the course of 17 days of competitors.

The Milan Cortina Paralympics’ opening ceremony can even happen within the Verona Enviornment, on March 6, and the Video games will run till March 15.