In sporting terms, Italy took on an Olympic challenge with a high degree of difficulty. The nation hosted a Winter Games scattered over several venues, headed by Milan and Cortina, but with high-calibre events in other mountain towns, such as Livigno, where Australia reaped an unprecedented six medals.
There were doubters – could Italy pull off this quadruple pike?
The ice hockey stadium was hastily finished, just before the Games, there were protests and concerns about the whole concept of spreading Olympics across northern Italy.
Well, Italy did pull it off.
The Winter Games did not suffer for decentralisation. Rather, the diversity of venues added to the allure, to the drama, the most compelling of which occurred early: American Lindsey Vonn’s horrific crash in her attempted comeback.
There were scandals, weird moments – such as a confession of infidelity by a Norwegian skier – and daily sporting dramas, culminating in USA’s ice hockey upset of Canada in the final hours of competition.
But as the Games moved to Verona, one wondered, after breaking audience records and averting the calamities some had predicted, if Milan-Cortina could stick the landing?
The closing in Verona was a low-key event. The most spectacular aspect of the ceremony was the venue – the Verona Stadium, built in ancient Roman times (between first and third centuries) and preserved enough to host a smaller scale ending.
The Milan-Cortina 2026 organising committee didn’t botch the landing, but it wasn’t perfect either.
It was a much less ambitious and entertaining event than the epic opening ceremony, before 60,000 plus at Milan’s San Siro Stadium, which had spectacular, high-scale operatic performances, exceptional dancing and a potent, perhaps pointed, speech from actress Charlize Theron, who quoted her nation’s former president, Nelson Mandela, and called for world peace.
Milan also contained controversy, such as the booing of US vice president JD Vance.
No such friction visited Verona, where Australian flag bearers and medallists Danielle Scott (silver) and Cooper Woods (gold) were among the many Australians escorted by police from Livigno and other locations to the stadium.
Thirty athletes comprised the Australian contingent at the closing ceremony.
There were, of course, operatic performances (nods to La Traviata and Madame Butterfly) – some staged in another venue and beamed in – ballet from a local troupe, and the catchy Eiffel 65 by Gabry Ponte.
It lacked the star power of Paris 2024, notable for Tom Cruise descending from the roof, or Snoop Dogg, who’d reprised his role an ambassador for Team USA at these Games. Snoop, paid millions by the AFL for 20 minutes of rap, was likely too expensive for Verona.
One highlight – and there weren’t many – was the rendition of a classic Italian song by Italian Joan Thiele of Il mondo (The World) by Jimmy Fontana.
The Verona audience spent much of their time standing while the national anthems of Italy, Greece (original Olympians), France (slow version), the Olympics, and Sweden and Norway (for belated medal presentations for the men’s and women’s 50km classic cross country skiing) were played.
It ended with the flame’s extinguishment in Milan and Cortina, the handover to France for 2030, and the formality of platitudinal speeches by the organisers and IOC President Kirsty Coventry.
Fair Verona couldn’t repeat the pizzazz of metropolitan Milan’s big-budget opening.
It was a subdued end to a superb Winter Games, in all.
Yet the landing did not define Milan-Cortina. Italy had done more than enough to ensure that the ending wasn’t so important.