Alessandro Garofalo/REUTERS
Olympic constellation (Milan, February 6, 2026)
The Winter Olympics in Italy have started. The opening ceremony on Friday was a big show. The march of the nations alone lasted one and a half hours and was spread across four locations: the location of the actual opening ceremony in the San Siro football temple in Milan as well as branch locations in Cortina (women’s alpine skiing, bobsleigh and tobogganing, curling), Predazzo (ski jumping, Nordic combined) and Livigno (snowboarding, freestyle). After an hour and a half, the attentive observer understood (at least roughly) where the delegations were with flags and where they were not. Doesn’t matter. The futuristically dressed models who carried the ice blocks (?) with the names of the nations in San Siro definitely attracted attention, which the German team also achieved. The ponchos and bucket hats created by Adidas attracted malice on social media, but what does social media know about fashion? The bobsleigh team led by Adam Ammour impressed in Cortina with a little skit, while ski jumper Katharina Schmid proved herself to be a talented flag-waver in Predazzo. Everything done right.
The US team did everything wrong, and even in times like these, they didn’t miss the opportunity to celebrate their own country with patriotic cheers. Mind you, as the only team of the entire evening. While the audience accepted this generously, there was a lot of booing when US Vice President JD Vance appeared on the stadium screen. What was obvious to television viewers around the world was not received in the United States. The station put it there NBC sure that the expressions of displeasure were not heard. Authoritarian regimes are pulling out all the stops.
In this context, a statement that the highly decorated US cross-country skier Jessica Diggins spread on social media before the games is sympathetic: She wanted to make it clear that she was competing for those Americans who would stand for “love, acceptance, compassion, honesty and respect for other people”; There is no place in her heart for “hatred, violence and discrimination”.
The speeches of the sports officials at the opening ceremony were as meaningless as ever, and the message of peace delivered by the South African-American actress Charlize Theron was just cringe. Poor Nelson Mandela. Otherwise a lot of dancing, music and two Italian ski legends, Alberto Tomba and Deborah Compagnoni, who lit the Olympic flame.
If the opening ceremony was too boring for you, you could look forward to action on the streets of Milan the following day. A broad coalition of people protested against the games. Some called for the promotion of popular sports instead of spending millions on the Olympics, others complained about the associated environmental damage. The fact that agents from the US border protection agency ICE are in Italy to protect the US delegation was also displeased. After a relatively quiet demonstration with several thousand people, things got more sporty in the evening: some of the protesters covered the police with projectiles, which responded with tear gas, there was a chase, and six people were arrested. The police reported 100 injured officers – it is unclear what injuries we are talking about here. It is also unclear whether several sabotage actions that paralyzed parts of the northern Italian railway network on Saturday were related to the Olympic protests.
When it comes to sports at the Olympics, there was already a lot going on on Saturday. The host country immediately received its first gold medal: Francesca Lollobrigida, a grandniece of the famous actress Gina, won the speed skater over 3,000 meters with a personal best and an Olympic record. Surprisingly, the Netherlands remained without a medal. Franjo von Allmen won the men’s downhill race for Switzerland – superstar Marco Odermatt missed out with fourth place. The Norwegian Anna Odine Strøm won the women’s ski jumping on the normal hill, while the dominator of the previous World Cup season, the Slovenian Nika Prevc, only came in second. In the skiathlon for cross-country skiers, Frida Karlsson and Ebba Andersson achieved a Swedish double victory.
The first day of the competition did not bring a medal for the German team, but in the men’s single-seater toboggan, Max Langenhan (BRC 05 Friedrichroda) was on course for gold after two runs. Stay two weeks.
