Intimate and enormous: Milano Cortina opening ceremony tries something different

The most striking thing about the opening ceremony isn’t a single prop, celebrity cameo or piece of choreography: it’s the geography. For the first time, an Olympic opening ceremony in effect happened across multiple live venues all at once, with Milan, Cortina, Livigno and Predazzo linked into one narrative structure. It felt less like a show in a stadium and more like watching a country perform itself in real time. The organising concept – “Armonia”, the idea that different elements can move together without losing their identity – isn’t just branding. It shapes how the ceremony actually functioned. Sitting in San Siro, you’re constantly aware that somewhere else, at that exact moment, another piece of the story is unfolding. It created a strange sense of scale: intimate and enormous at once. In an era when global attention is fragmented across screens and platforms, Italy staged the opposite – a ceremony built on simultaneity, connection and shared rhythm.

Instead of the usual slow-motion lap of a single stadium – the emotional endurance test that most ceremonies turn into – the parade here was deliberately fractured. Ice athletes appeared in Milan, freestyle and snowboard athletes in Livigno, Nordic athletes in Predazzo, and sliding and biathlon athletes in Cortina. Logistically, it reduced travel. Emotionally, it changed the rhythm. You lose the slow, building crescendo of delegations marching into one space, but gain something more intimate and modern – almost like watching four opening ceremonies stitched into one broadcast. It also felt unmistakably Italian in execution. The visual design leans hard into aesthetics: banners styled to resemble blocks of ice, uniforms pulling as much from fashion logic as sports tradition. The result is less “march of nations” and more curated visual sequence. It didn’t have the overwhelming, wall-of-flags impact of a single stadium parade, but it replaced it with something arguably closer to how global sport actually is now: distributed, simultaneous and networked.

A firework display at the Arco della Pace after the lighting of the Olympic cauldron to open Milano Cortina 2026. Photograph: Joosep Martinson/Getty Images

The Olympics always deliver two specific pleasures: the dopamine hit of suddenly caring about sports you didn’t know existed and the spectacle of athletes walking out in national kit that doubles as soft power. On Friday night, you could feel the second one happening in real time. Italy’s team drew one of the loudest reactions, the snow-white EA7 Emporio Armani uniforms – among the last projects tied to Giorgio Armani, who died in September aged 91 – catching the stadium floodlights. The US followed in Ralph Lauren’s polished winter Americana: flag knits, winter whites, instantly recognisable. Mongolia’s opening-ceremony looks, designed by Goyol Cashmere, were among the most buzzed-about: heavy ceremonial silhouettes rooted in traditional deels, fur-trimmed and historic rather than technical. Haiti’s Stella Jean-designed uniforms drew more curiosity and conversation, the original concept featuring revolutionary leader Toussaint Louverture before Olympic rules barring political symbolism forced a redesign around his galloping horse. It’s the second straight Olympics to be staged in a fashion capital and brands are not shying away from the ridiculously high bar set at the Paris Games two years ago.

There had been quiet concern all week that the American delegation – or the politicians attached to it – might draw a hostile reception, after reports of US security analysts linked to Immigration and Customs Enforcement operating around the Games collided with broader tensions over Washington’s foreign policy posture. For most of Friday night, those fears looked overblown. The US athletes received a full-throated welcome when the enormous delegation entered San Siro, the kind of roar reserved for medal favorites and host nations. But moments later, a routine cutaway to US vice-president JD Vance and second lady Usha Vance drew an unmistakable wave of boos from large swaths of the crowd. The shot lasted barely three seconds before returning to the athletes below, but it was long enough to change the temperature inside the stadium. Earlier, a smattering of boos met Israel’s four representatives, amid calls in some quarters for Israel to be banned over the Gaza war that followed Hamas’s deadly October 2023 attack. The Olympics sell the promise of unity. The crowd, briefly, sounded unconvinced.

A few blocks from the choreography, a different kind of gathering was taking shape. In a square near San Siro, a few hundred demonstrators – including public-housing tenants, student activists and campaigners from Il Comitato Insostenibili Olimpiadi (Unsustainable Olympics Committee) – staged a protest aimed less at the ceremony itself than what it represents. Some carried banners accusing the government of prioritising Olympic spending over affordable housing and public services, alongside an “anti-Olympic torch” parodying the official relay. Others focused on broader geopolitical grievances, with chants critical of Israel and supportive of Palestinians cutting through whistles and flares. The mood felt organised rather than chaotic: more civic rally than flashpoint, with the march proceeding peacefully despite heavy security and street closures around the stadium. The protests are part of a wider drumbeat that has followed the Games into Milan, from environmental demonstrations targeting Olympic sponsors to marches opposing reported US security coordination and the presence of American immigration agents tied to athlete protection. For most fans heading toward the stadium, it was background noise. But it was a reminder of a constant Olympic truth: the ceremony tells one story about a host city. The streets usually tell another.