Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics: Your Complete Guide to the Opening Ceremony, Key Sports, Star Athletes

It’s finally here. After years of planning, construction headaches, budget debates and about a million logistical nightmares, the 2026 Winter Olympics officially kick off tonight in Milan. The Opening Ceremony at San Siro stadium is expected to draw around two billion viewers worldwide — and if the lineup of performers is anything to go by, it’s going to be quite the show.

This is the 25th edition of the Winter Olympics and only the fourth time Italy has hosted any Olympic Games. But Milano Cortina 2026 is doing a few things that have never been done before, and it’s worth understanding what makes these Games different from anything we’ve seen.

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The Opening Ceremony: San Siro, Two Cauldrons, and Mariah Carey

The ceremony starts at 8:00 PM local time (7:00 PM GMT, 2:00 PM ET) at the San Siro Olympic Stadium — the same arena where AC Milan and Inter Milan play football. It’s the biggest stadium in Italy, and tonight it’s going to be transformed into the stage for one of the world’s great spectacles.

The show is called “Armonia” — Italian for “Harmony” — and it’s been produced by Balich Wonder Studio, the same team behind several previous Olympic ceremonies. More than 1,200 volunteer performers from 27 countries will take part, wearing over 1,400 costumes. The music was recorded by around 500 musicians.

But the real headline-grabber is the performer list. Mariah Carey, Andrea Bocelli, Laura Pausini, Chinese pianist Lang Lang, Italian rapper Ghali, and Emmy-nominated actress Sabrina Impacciatore from The White Lotus will all appear. It’s a deliberately international lineup designed to match the spirit of the Games.

And here’s the genuinely historic part: for the first time ever, the Olympics will light two separate cauldrons simultaneously. One will stand at the Arco della Pace in central Milan. The other will be in Piazza Dibona in Cortina d’Ampezzo, up in the Dolomites. The cauldrons are inspired by the geometric “knots” of Leonardo da Vinci — a nod to Milan’s most famous creative mind — and they’re meant to symbolize the connection between the two host cities.

Opening Ceremony: Key Facts at a Glance

Detail	Info
Venue	San Siro Olympic Stadium, Milan
Date & Time	February 6, 2026 — 8:00 PM CET
Theme	“Armonia” (Harmony)
Performers	Mariah Carey, Andrea Bocelli, Laura Pausini, Lang Lang, Ghali
Parade of Athletes	92 nations; Greece first, Italy last (host tradition)
Olympic cauldrons	Two — first time in history (Milan + Cortina)
Estimated global audience	~2 billion viewers
Volunteer performers	1,200+ from 27 countries
Costumes	1,400+
Simultaneous ceremonies	Cortina d’Ampezzo, Livigno, Predazzo
Italy flagbearers	Federica Brignone (Alpine skiing) & Amos Mosaner (curling)

In another first, the ceremony won’t just happen in Milan. Simultaneous athlete parades will take place in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Livigno, and Predazzo — the mountain towns where snow sports will be held. It’s part of the “distributed Games” concept that organisers have been pushing: the idea that these Olympics belong to all of northern Italy, not just one city.

The Numbers: The Biggest Winter Games Ever

Milano Cortina 2026 is breaking records before a single medal has been handed out. Here’s the scale of what we’re looking at:

Milano Cortina 2026 by the Numbers

Metric	Figure
Athletes	~2,900 (largest Winter Games field ever)
Countries	92
Sports	8 (comprising 16 disciplines)
Medal events	116
Venues	15 across northern Italy
Olympic Villages	Multiple (Milan, Cortina, Livigno)
Duration	February 6–22 (Olympic), March 6–15 (Paralympic)
New sport	Ski mountaineering (Olympic debut)
Closing Ceremony venue	Verona Arena (Roman amphitheatre, built 30 AD)

The closing ceremony will be held at the Verona Arena — a 2,000-year-old Roman amphitheatre. If that doesn’t capture Italy’s ability to blend ancient history with modern spectacle, nothing will.

Where Everything Is Happening

One thing that catches people off guard about these Games is how spread out they are. Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo are about 410 kilometres apart — roughly a four-hour drive. The venues are scattered across Lombardy and northeast Italy, with ice sports mostly in Milan and snow sports up in the mountains.

Venue Map: What’s Where

Location	Sports	Distance from Milan
Milan (city)	Figure skating, short track, ice hockey (partial)	—
Milan Rho (Fiera Milano)	Ice hockey, speed skating	~15 km
Cortina d’Ampezzo	Bobsled, skeleton, luge, curling, Alpine skiing	~410 km
Bormio	Alpine skiing (men’s downhill, super-G)	~210 km
Livigno	Freestyle skiing, snowboard	~230 km
Anterselva/Antholz	Biathlon	~340 km
Val di Fiemme (Predazzo/Tesero)	Cross-country skiing, ski jumping, Nordic combined	~290 km

The organisers have set up park-and-ride and train-and-ride systems to move spectators between venues, and Milan’s public transport will run extended hours until 2:00 AM throughout the Games. If you’re actually there, expect a lot of shuttle buses and a lot of patience.

Athletes to Watch

Every Olympics produces its stars, but a few names are already generating serious buzz heading into these Games.

Ones to Watch at Milano Cortina 2026

Athlete	Country	Sport	Why They Matter
Lindsey Vonn	USA	Alpine skiing	Came out of retirement at 41; chasing one last Olympic medal
Mikaela Shiffrin	USA	Alpine skiing	Record-breaking World Cup wins; going for multiple golds
Nathan Chen	USA	Figure skating	2022 gold medallist defending his title
Kamila Valieva	ROC/Russia	Figure skating	Controversial return after Beijing 2022 doping saga
Johannes Thingnes Bø	Norway	Biathlon	Dominant force looking to add to his Olympic collection
Federica Brignone	Italy	Alpine skiing	Host nation star; flagbearer at Opening Ceremony
Shaun White protégés	USA	Snowboard	New generation stepping up after White’s retirement

The biggest storyline might be Lindsey Vonn. She retired from competitive skiing in 2019, but at 41 she’s come back for one more shot. She has an artificial knee. She hasn’t been at this level in years. And yet she qualified. The whole thing feels like a movie script — and the whole world will be watching to see how it ends.

The Elephant in the Room: Construction Problems

It would be dishonest to talk about these Games without mentioning the chaos behind the scenes. The main ice hockey arena — the Milano Santa Giulia venue designed by David Chipperfield — faced significant construction delays. IIHF president Luc Tardif confirmed in January that the stands wouldn’t be fully complete in time, meaning reduced capacity for early matches. Organisers insist the rink and player facilities are ready, but it’s been an embarrassing look for a Games that was supposed to showcase Italian style and efficiency.

Budget overruns have been a recurring theme throughout the seven-year planning process. The speed skating venue was moved from its original location to Turin’s Oval Lingotto — built for the 2006 Games — after cost estimates for a new build spiralled. Some critics have questioned whether the “distributed” model, while romantic, has simply created more infrastructure headaches than a single-city Games would have.

Still, none of that is likely to matter once the lights go down at San Siro tonight and the first notes ring out. The Olympics have a way of making you forget about the backstage drama the moment the show begins.

The Bottom Line

These are the biggest Winter Olympics ever staged, spread across some of the most beautiful landscape in Europe, featuring the largest athlete delegation in Winter Games history, opening with a ceremony that includes Mariah Carey singing inside a football cathedral and two cauldrons lighting up simultaneously for the first time in 130 years of Olympic history.

Whatever happens over the next 16 days — the triumphs, the upsets, the controversies, the tears — it all starts tonight. Enjoy it.

The Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics run from February 6 to February 22. The Paralympic Winter Games follow from March 6 to March 15.