From Monday 2 February the first bans, with the safety plan for Mattarella’s arrival in the city. The mayor: «We will mediate between the need for security and that of participation». Schools closed? «Slightly useless controversy»
Roads closed, barriers and red zones. The number one enemy will be mobility. But faced with the idea of a blocked city, Palazzo Marino tries to reassure the Milanese: the administration is working to «balance security measures with the possibility of people participating», explains mayor Beppe Sala. And on the controversy over closed schools: «The Olympics are an exceptional event. Everyone needs to have a little patience.”
Major restrictions will begin on Monday with the arrival of the President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella, with Piazza Scala and the streets around Palazzo Marino armored. But the most stringent measures are scheduled for February 6day of the opening ceremony of the Winter Games at San Siro. «The main problems I see are linked to the topic of mobility», explains the mayor, understanding «the fears of citizens», to the idea of barriers, limits and prohibitions. “We need to find a formula”, adds the mayor to make people participate but also guarantee safety. For example, for the passage of the Olympic flame through the city, the mayor underlines that the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II will not be cordoned off.
«What do we do otherwise? The Olympic flame passes and there isn’t even a Milanese to see it?”. We are also working to ensure that spectators of the inaugural ceremony can arrive directly at San Siro. “Maybe it’s raining, it’s not like we can ask anyone with tickets to stop in Piazzale Lotto and then walk in the rain.” On the “somewhat useless” controversy for the mayor regarding the closure of schools on 6 February within the external ring road, he highlights that in Turin in 2006 the institutes closed “for a few days”.
In the meantime the delegations of the various countries are starting to settle in the respective Olympic houses in the city, who began to parade in the arrivals terminal of Malpensa airport. The technical staff of the national teams are disembarking at the Varese airport: trainers, coaches, technicians and physiotherapists, as well as accredited reporters and those among the athletes who have preferred to bring forward their arrival to acclimatise with the European time zone. In Milan, under the gaze of passers-by and onlookers, part of the Canadian, Finnish and Lithuanian representatives made their entry, as did the first tranche of the US team’s logistical apparatus, which chose the over one thousand square meters of Palazzo Ralph Lauren in via San Barnaba as its headquarters. Honorable mention for the Japanese staff, who showed up with more than six hundred crates of technical material and equipment destined for the Olympic Village. The countdown has just begun.
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