This is the most spread-out Olympics in history, and the Opening Ceremony will have celebrations across Italy.
MILAN, Metropolitan City of Milan — An unprecedented four-site, dual-cauldron Winter Olympics opening ceremony replete with references to Italian icons and culture — plus American pop diva Mariah Carey — was scheduled to officially start the Milan Cortina Games on Friday as the sports spectacle returns to a nation that last hosted the event 20 years ago.
Here are the latest updates, in a descending timeline:
Team USA hoping to carry momentum from the Opening Ceremony
Speedskater Erin Jackson, who was chosen by her teammates as one of this year’s flag bearers, said ahead of Team USA’s entrance during the Parade of Nations that she was excited to march, but even more excited to perform over the next several days.
“It’s going to be momentum building,” Jackson said in Milan. “It’s going to start right here with my team next to me, and we’re going to carry that energy right onto the track.”
Athletes across Italy
Because the Milan Cortina Olympics are the most spread-out in history, there isn’t just one Opening Ceremony.
For athletes unable to make it to Milan because they’re competing hundreds of miles away, such as Lindsey Vonn in Cortina, the NBC broadcast cut between the main delegation marching for the March of Nations in Milan and smaller delegations in other locations
Olympic rings dazzle overhead
After a series of quick performances by Italian artists, five golden rings were floated over the stage into one of the most recognizable symbols in the world: the Olympic Rings. As the rings rose above the stadium, they erupted in a burst of fireworks, bathing the arena in golden bronze light.
The rings, traditionally colored red, yellow, black, green and blue, contain a color found in every flag on the planet. Their interconnected nature is meant to symbolize the world coming together, despite conflict, for the Olympic Games.
An ethereal performance begins the 2026 Games
The Opening Ceremony began with a dance routine featuring angelic performers on a circular stage, lit up by flashing spiral lights in the floor. The dance, surrounded by statues depicting famed marble busts, highlights Italy’s long history of art.
After, a prarade of music note-wearing dancers took the stage along with actor and singer Matilda De Angelis, accompanied by giant paint tubes floating over the stage, with another performance meant to highlight Italian artistic influences: this time in music.
Mariah Carey performs in English, Italian
The iconic singer took the stage at the 2026 Olympics to perform a medley song, mixing the 1958 Italian classic “Volare” with her own song “Nothing is impossible.”
Carey donned a white dress, embellished with crystal beading in a sunburst pattern, with a white feather coat for the occasion.
In Cortina, hundreds of fans sang along with Carey in Italian, and there was an audible roar when they realized she was performing “Volare.”
The most spread-out Games in history
This is the most spread-out Olympics — Summer or Winter — in history, with competition venues dotting an area of about 8,500 square miles (more than 22,000 square kilometers), roughly the size of the entire state of New Jersey.
The main hub Friday is in Milan at San Siro soccer stadium, which is home to Serie A titans AC Milan and Inter Milan, opened a century ago and is due to be razed and replaced in the next few years. There also will be three other places where athletes can march, some carrying their country’s flag: Cortina d’Ampezzo in the heart of the Dolomite mountains; Livigno in the Alps; Predazzo in the autonomous province of Trento.
That allows up-in-the-mountains sports such as Alpine skiing, bobsled, curling and snowboarding to be represented in the Parade of Nations without needing to make the several-hours-long trek to Milan, the country’s financial capital, and back.
For good measure, the Feb. 22 closing ceremony will be held in yet another locale, Verona, where Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” was set.
Another symbol of how far-flung things are this time: Instead of the usual one cauldron that is lit and burns throughout the Olympics, there will be two, both intended as an homage to Leonardo da Vinci’s geometric studies. One is in Milan, 2½ miles (4 kilometers) from San Siro, and the other is going to be 250 miles (400 kilometers) away in Cortina.
Why is Savannah Guthrie missing from the Olympics coverage?
“Today,” host Savannah Guthrie was set to be part of NBC’s coverage for the Opening Ceremony team. But a week before the Opening Ceremony, her mother, Nancy Guthrie, disappeared in what authorities believe was a kidnapping from her Arizona home.
Guthrie flew to Arizona to be with her family, forcing NBC to make a last minute adjustment to the schedule.
NBC Sports announced Wednesday that longtime Olympic broadcaster Mary Carillo will replace Guthrie, alongside Terry Gannon for Friday’s Opening Ceremony.
As the network’s coverage began ahead of the Opening Ceremony, both hosts acknowledged the elephant in the room.
“We’re certainly without a very important, beloved, member of our team tonight,” Gannon said. “Our friend, and colleague, Savannah Guthrie … she is dearly missed by everybody here.”
Carillo, who flew to Italy in Guthrie’s place, agreed.
“She sure is, she’s covered so many Olympics … and she loves them,” Carillo said. “Right now, of course, Savannah and her family are in unspeakable, unfathomable pain. We know in the U.S. that her extended family is legion. Savannah my friend, it’s the same way”
Who will light the cauldron?
The people given the honor of lighting both was a closely guarded secret, as is usually the case at any Olympics. At the Turin Winter Games in 2006, it was Italian cross-country skier Stefania Belmondo.
Other links to Italy’s heritage scheduled to be a part of Friday’s festivities include a performance by tenor Andrea Bocelli; classically trained dancers from the academy of the famed Milan opera house, Teatro alla Scala; a tribute to the late fashion designer Giorgio Armani, who died last year at 91. Armani designed the Olympic and Paralympic uniforms for the Italian national team for decades, and was a personal friend of the former president of the Italian National Olympic Committee, Giovanni Malagò.
Plenty more planned for Friday was being kept under wraps by organizers who said they sought to convey themes of harmony and peace, seeking to represent the city-mountain dichotomy of the particularly unusual setup for these Olympics while also trying to appeal to a sense of unity at a time of global tensions.
Vance at the head of the US delegation
Another unknown: What sort of reception would greet U.S. Vice President JD Vance when he attended the ceremony in Milan? And what about the American athletes?
When new International Olympic Committee President Kirsty Coventry was asked this week what sort of greeting the U.S. delegation would get when they enter San Siro in the Parade of Nations, she replied: “I hope the opening ceremony is seen by everyone as an opportunity to be respectful.”
Associated Press writer Colleen Barry contributed to this report.