Winter Games Opening Ceremony LIVE: Olympic cauldrons lit after JD Vance and Israeli athletes booed in Milan
The Winter Olympics officially got underway tonight with the Opening Ceremony in Milan
The Winter Olympics officially kicked off tonight, with the Opening Ceremony celebrating the start of two weeks of the very best of winter sport.
The main Opening Ceremony took place in Milan’s San Siro Stadium, one of the historic site’s final events before it is slated to be torn down. But due to the spread-out nature of these Games – taking place across northern Italy – there were also athlete parades in the mountain clusters, including Cortina, where the curling, bobsleigh, skeleton and luge all take place.
Israel's Olympic team walked into the stadium to a smattering of boos at what had otherwise been an upbeat and festive celebration of the global winter sports extravaganza, while US vice-president JD Vance was also jeered after appearing on screen.
The four-person Israeli delegation, waving the country's flag and smiling, marched into the San Siro stadium during the parade of participating countries with the boos quickly drowned out by the loud soundtrack.
Plenty of stars were in action at tonight’s ceremony, and not just the athletes – Mariah Carey, legendary singer Andrea Bocelli, and Grammy-nominated pianist Lang Lang all performed.
Olympic crowd’s boos for JD Vance show politics can’t be avoided at 2026 Winter Games
We’ll leave you with Flo Clifford’s report from inside San Siro:
Olympic crowd’s boos for JD Vance show politics can’t be avoided at 2026 Winter Games
The end of the Opening Ceremony
And that’s the end of that!
The Olympic cualdrons are lit!
Italian legendary skiers Alberto Tomba and Deborah Compagnoni light one cauldron in Milan, I believe, as Sofia Goggia lights the cauldron simultaneously in Cortina.
They will both stay lit until the end of the Games.
Winter Olympics – Opening Ceremony
The Olympic torch is being passed between various people, some of whom are celebrated Italian athletes such as skiier Sofia Goggia. It’s all a bit slow but the flame is slowly making its way towards the cauldron...
Winter Olympics – Opening Ceremony
The great Eliud Kipchoge is one of a number of athletes who brings the Olympic flag into the stadium.
Charlize Theron reads Mandela's words
Performers dance to a reading of a poem about peace and rejecting war, before Charlize Theron takes the stage to deliver “a message of peace by my beloved countryman Nelson Mandela”.
“Peace is not just the absence of conflict; peace is the creation of an environment where all can flourish regardless of race, color, creed, religion, gender, class, caste or any other social markers of difference.”
She adds a “resounding call for peace everywhere”.
Winter Olympics – Opening Ceremony
Next up: Andrea Bocelli performing Nessun Dorma. Wonderful.
Winter Olympics – Opening Ceremony
Kirsty Coventry, the IOC president, speaks now. “My fellow Olympians,” she says, playing on a key part of her election pledge, which was that she only recently was an athlete herself, rather than a career bureaucrat.
“Welcome to your Games. I know what it feels like, that mix of excitement and nerves, your whole life of hard work, early mronings, long days, sacrifices, setbacks, it all comes down to this. I know that feeling when you realise, this is it. You’ve made it. So first, be proud. And now, take it all in. Enjoy it. Enjoy every second.”
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