Closing ceremony of the Olympics in Milan Cortina passes the flag to France – The Mercury News
By COLLEEN BARRYThe Associated Press
VERONA, Italy (AP) – The Milan Cortina Olympics ended Sunday with a closing ceremony honoring Italian dance and music inside the ancient Verona Arena, roughly halfway between the mountain, valley and city centers that have made the winter games the most popular in Olympic history.
Some 1,500 Olympians entered the cobblestone arena waving small national flags to a rousing rendition of Italian pop hits from the 20th century as the crowd sang along.
The 2½-hour event opened with an Italian musical opera salute, during which the stage director woke up not only the closing ceremony cast, including the Italian singer Achille Lauro, but also the long-sleeping opera actors placed in crates inside the theater’s tunnel.
On stage, Madama Butterfly in a bright pink and green dress and Aida in a gold tie were released from mirrored crates while 17th-century singers played the lively “Libiamo ne’ lieti calici” from La Traviata, a nod to the Arena’s long history as a summer opera festival venue.
The opera cast, led by the jester Rigoletto, spilled out of the piazza, mingling with stunned athletes carrying their countries’ flags, some of whom took out their phones to take pictures.
In a momentous moment, the Olympic flame encased in a Venetian glass vessel was brought into the Arena by Italy’s gold medalists from the 1994 Lillehammer Games. The white-lit Olympic rings were visible from the top of the stone steps behind the stage, flanked by national flags, with one holding a flame in the middle of the stage.
Around 12,000 spectators joined athletes and officials for the closing ceremony, which was a more intimate affair than the opening ceremony featuring Mariah Carey and Andrea Bocelli inside Milan’s San Siro stadium.
In one of the most important moments, the Olympic flag was given to the next country to host the Winter Games, France, and its flag was raised next to those of Italy and Greece.
The Milan Cortina Games cover an area of 8,500 square kilometers, from skiing in Milan to biathlon in Anterselva on the Austrian border, snowboarding and men’s downhill in Valtellina on the Swiss border, cross-country skiing in Val di Fiemme north of Verona and women’s downhill, curling and sliding sports in Cortinazod’A.
It is a model that will remain in future Games, to avoid the cost of building new buildings. The 2030 Winter Games in the French Alps will host events in the Alps and Nice, on the Mediterranean Sea, while speedskating will be held abroad at a location to be decided.
The closing ceremony was to end with the Olympic flames being extinguished in two cauldrons, Milan and Cortina. A small display will take the place of fireworks, which are not allowed in Verona, to protect the animals from disturbance.
The opening ceremony of the Milan Cortina Paralympics will take place again at the Verona Arena, on March 6, and the games will continue until March 15.
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