Olympic flame for Milan Cortina Winter Games arrives in Italy following handover in Greece

The Olympic Flame Arrives in Rome, Beginning Journey to Milan Cortina Winter Games

The Olympic flame for the Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Games touched down in Rome on Thursday, marking the beginning of its extensive journey throughout Italy ahead of the February competitions.

Tennis star Jasmine Paolini, a recent Olympic gold medalist, emerged from an ITA Airways flight from Athens alongside Italian Olympic Committee president Giovanni Malagò, carefully carrying the flame enclosed in a specially designed lantern.

“I feel honored. It’s an incredible emotion,” Paolini said during a brief ceremony after deplaning from the flight that connected the Greek and Italian capitals.

The flame’s arrival begins what will be an ambitious 63-day torch relay covering 12,000 kilometers (nearly 7,500 miles) across the Italian peninsula. Starting Saturday in Rome, the relay will traverse all 110 Italian provinces before culminating at Milan’s iconic San Siro Stadium on February 6 for the opening ceremony of the Games.

This marks Italy’s first Olympic flame hosting since the Turin Winter Olympics in 2006, returning the prestigious symbol to the country after nearly two decades. The Olympic flame tradition, which began as a Greek-German collaboration ahead of the 1936 Olympics, has become one of the Games’ most enduring and symbolic rituals.

Friday will see another significant moment in the flame’s journey when it illuminates a cauldron at Rome’s Quirinale Palace, the official residence of Italian President Sergio Mattarella. International Olympic Committee president Kirsty Coventry is expected to attend this ceremonial lighting.

The torch relay itself represents a massive logistical undertaking, requiring 10,001 torch bearers who will carry the Olympic symbol through major cities and small communities alike. The relay begins Saturday at Rome’s Stadio dei Marmi, known for its classical statues that line the venue.

Before arriving in Italy, the flame underwent traditional ceremonies in Greece. Earlier Thursday, it was formally presented to Italian organizers in a ceremony at Athens’ Panathenaic stadium, the historic marble venue where the first modern Olympics were held almost 130 years ago.

“To stand here in this historic stadium provides an inspiring reminder of the honor we have been granted and the precious treasure we will carry home with us,” Malagò said during the handover ceremony.

The flame had spent the previous night burning in a cauldron outside the ancient Parthenon temple atop the Acropolis. Greek water polo player Elena Xenaki carried it into the Panathenaic stadium, where she and Greece’s women’s national water polo team lit another ceremonial cauldron during the handover.

The flame’s journey across Italy includes several significant dates and locations. It will be in Naples for Christmas and Bari for New Year’s Eve before reaching the 2006 host city of Turin on January 11. The torch arrives in Verona on January 18 and will visit Cortina d’Ampezzo on January 26—exactly 70 years after the opening ceremony of the 1956 Winter Olympics held in the famed Dolomites resort town.

These 2026 Winter Games represent a unique organizational approach, with events scattered across northern Italy rather than concentrated in a single area. The opening ceremony will be observed in four different locations, including Livigno (host to snowboarding and freestyle skiing events) and Predazzo (where ski jumping competitions will take place).

The competition venues span a wide geographic area, with skating sports held in Milan; men’s Alpine skiing and ski mountaineering in Bormio; and women’s Alpine skiing, sliding sports and curling in Cortina d’Ampezzo.

In keeping with Olympic tradition, a separate flame for the Winter Paralympics (March 6-15) will be lit on February 24 at Stoke Mandeville Hospital in England, recognized as the birthplace of the Paralympic movement.

As the torch relay begins its extensive journey through Italy, it will connect communities large and small with the Olympic spirit, building anticipation for what organizers hope will be a memorable Winter Games across the northern Italian landscape.