Olympic swimming champion Gregorio Paltrinieri started off the torch relay for the Milan Cortina Winter Games on Saturday — which marked exactly two months before the Feb. 6 opening ceremony.
Paltrinieri carried the sleek torch around the track of the statue-lined Stadio dei Marmi at the Foro Italico to begin a trek covering 12,000 kilometers (nearly 7,500 miles) that will wind its way through all 110 Italian provinces before reaching Milan’s San Siro Stadium for the opening ceremony.
In all, there will be 10,001 torch bearers.
Also due to carry the torch around Rome on Saturday were tennis player Matteo Berrettini, retired NBA player Andrea Bargnani and former motorcycle racer Max Biaggi.
The torch relay, which includes 60 city celebrations, will be in Naples for Christmas and in Bari for New Year’s Eve. It will reach 2006 Olympics host Turin on Jan 11.
The torch will arrive in Verona on Jan. 18 and pass through Cortina d’Ampezzo on Jan. 26 — on the 70th anniversary of the opening ceremony of the 1956 Winter Olympics held at the resort in the Dolomites.
There will also be a cauldron lit in Cortina on the night of the opening ceremony.
These games will be held across a large swath of northern Italy and the ceremony will be observed in four different locations, including Livigno (where snowboarding and freestyle skiing will be contested) and Predazzo (ski jumping).
Skating sports will be held in Milan; men’s Alpine skiing and ski mountaineering in Bormio; and women’s Alpine skiing, sliding sports and curling in Cortina.
The next stops on the torch relay are Viterbo on Sunday and Terni on Monday.
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AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics
