Overview
- Organizers moved the traditional outdoor ceremony into the Archaeological Museum of Ancient Olympia due to rain forecasts and used a backup flame kindled during Monday’s rehearsal.
- Greek rower Petros Gaidatzis received the flame as the first torchbearer, starting a roughly nine-day relay in Greece ahead of a Dec. 4 handover at Athens’ Panathenaic Stadium.
- After the handover, the flame begins an approximately 63-day, 12,000-kilometre relay through all 110 Italian provinces with about 10,000 torchbearers, culminating at Milan’s San Siro on Feb. 6.
- IOC President Kirsty Coventry delivered an emotional address at the ceremony, calling the Games a unifying platform in a divided world and underscoring the Olympic Truce.
- Milano–Cortina organizers tout 116 medal events, the debut of ski mountaineering, increased female participation and NHL players’ return, while planning large-scale artificial snow production of 2.4 million cubic metres requiring 948,000 cubic metres of water.