Famend Italian dancer Roberto Bolle directs the ″white dance″ throughout the occasion ″One Dance″ in entrance of the Duomo gothic cathedral, in Milan, Italy, Sunday, Sept. 10, 2023. [AP/YONHAP]
Internationally acclaimed ballet star Roberto Bolle will headline the 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics closing ceremony, titled “Magnificence in Movement,” in Verona’s historical Roman amphitheater, one of many world’s oldest, organizers introduced Thursday.
The Feb. 22 closing occasion can pay homage to town of Verona — which is a Unesco World Heritage web site — and the Enviornment’s position because the venue for a well-known summer season opera competition, whereas celebrating athletic excellence and addressing local weather change, stated Alfredo Accatino, inventive director for the closing ceremony.
“If the local weather continues to vary, there received’t be Winter Olympics anymore,” Accatino lamented.
The central stage throughout the almost 2,000-year-old Enviornment shall be formed like a waterdrop, symbolically uniting the mountain venues with the fertile Po River Valley, the place Milan and Verona are situated, and the Venetian lagoon, Accatino stated.
Bolle, who carried out on the opening ceremony for the 2006 Winter Olympic Video games in Turin, is a well-recognized sight on the Enviornment, the place he travels every summer season along with his “Roberto Bolle and Buddies” annual gala. He’s the one expertise introduced to date.
The 2026 Winter Video games, from Feb. 6 to 22, would be the first with two official host cities, Milano in Lombardy and Cortina within the Dolomites of Veneto. The opening and shutting ceremonies may also be held in two completely different cities: Milan and Verona.
The addition of Verona, a chic metropolis of cobbled streets nestled alongside the winding Adige River and towards pre-Alpine mountains, has generated pleasure among the many delegations extra accustomed to sports activities venues, stated Giovanni Malago, president of the Milan Cortina Basis native organizing committee.
“This shall be an excellent commercial for Verona,” Malago stated. “It’s fairly apparent that the ambiance shall be fully completely different from a sports activities stadium. There may be quite a lot of curiosity to come back right here.”
Centrally situated among the many far-flung Olympic venues, Verona is shaping as much as be a base for a lot of Olympic guests, not only a vacation spot for the Feb. 22 closing ceremony, Mayor Damiano Tommasi stated, citing resort reservation traits.
Verona is about an hour and quarter-hour by practice from Milan, the place ice sports activities are being held, and is simply over three hours by automotive to Bormio, the venue for males’s downhill, and about the identical to Cortina, the place girls’s downhill, curling and bobsled shall be held.
Organizers stated they have been nonetheless finalizing the variety of tickets to be offered for the closing ceremony. The Enviornment di Verona sometimes holds about 15,000 spectators throughout opera season, however the closing ceremony capability shall be decrease as a result of the central stage shall be expanded, and plenty of seats are reserved for athletes and official delegations
AP
