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Olympic swimming champion Gregorio Paltrinieri and his fellow summer athletes began the Cortina Winter Games torch relay in Milan on Saturday – exactly two months before the opening ceremony on February 6.
Paltrinieri carried the graceful torch along the statue-lined Stadio dei Marmi route at the Italian Forum in Rome to begin a 12,000-kilometer (nearly 7,500-mile) journey that will pass through all 110 Italian provinces before reaching Milan's San Siro stadium for the opening ceremony.
“It’s nice to be part of the Olympic movement, even if it’s the Winter Olympics,” Paltrinieri said.
There will be 10,001 torchbearers in total.
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At the end of opening day, police said they had prevented two groups of pro-Palestinian activists from coming into contact with the relay route.
Giancarlo Peris, the final torchbearer of the 1960 Rome Olympics, carried the Olympic flame in a lantern to begin the process. Peris, 84, was 18 when he lit the cauldron at the Olympic Stadium, next to the Stadio dei Marmi, more than 65 years ago.
“I didn’t think I’d be here today,” Paris chuckled.
Paltrinieri won gold in the 1500m at the 2016 Rio Games and has a total of five Olympic medals. He and his friend Rossella Fiamingo, a fencer, carried the Italian flag at the closing ceremony of last year's Paris Games.
“I skied when I was a kid, but then I stopped because it was a little dangerous for me,” Paltrinieri said. “Skiing is my favorite activity” [Winter Olympic sport]. … Alberto Tomba was one of my biggest idols.”
Paltrinieri passed on to retired fencer Elisa Di Francisca, who won two golds at the 2012 London Games.
Next up was Gianmarco Tamberi, the 2020 Olympic champion in the high jump.
Tennis player Matteo Berrettini, retired NBA player Andrea Bargnani and former motorcycle racer Max Biaggi also carried the torch through Rome on Saturday.
Actor Ricky Tognazzi carried the torch on a white Vespa in a scene reminiscent of the 1953 film Roman Holiday starring Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck.
The torch relay, which includes 60 city celebrations, will take place in Naples on Christmas Day and in Bari on New Year's Eve. On January 11 it will reach Turin, host of the 2006 Olympic Games.
The torch will arrive in Verona on January 18 and will pass through Cortina d'Ampezzo on January 26, the 70th anniversary of the opening ceremony of the 1956 Winter Olympics, held at the Dolomites resort.
Do you know the history of the Olympic flame? Did you know that the Olympic flame was introduced at the Berlin Games in 1936? Watch the first episode of CBC Sports Explains where we take you through the history of the flame, from the ancient Olympic Games to how it became the iconic symbol it is today.
The cauldron will also be lit in Cortina on the night of the opening ceremony.
The president of the local organizing committee, Giovanni Malago, noted that the torch relay will pass by all the UNESCO World Heritage sites in the country, of which Italy has more than any other country: 61.
“It’s like a giant two-month advertisement,” Malago said.
The Games will take place across a large area of northern Italy, with the ceremony being watched in four different locations, including Livigno (where snowboarding and freestyle skiing will be competed) and Predazzo (ski jumping).
Speed skating will take place in Milan; men's skiing and ski mountaineering in Bormio; and women's alpine skiing, sliding and curling in Cortina.
The next stops of the torch relay are Viterbo on Sunday and Terni on Monday.
