Olympic flame arrives: 2026 Milano Winter Games relay countdown begins in Italy

Italy received Olympic flame on Thursday to kick off Milano-Cortina Winter Games in a ceremony at Athens’ Panathenaic Stadium ahead of a 63-day torch relay.

Owing to heavy rain warnings, the flame lighting in ancient Olympia last week was a scaled-down event, as reported by the Reuters.

Milano-Cortina Winter Games organising chief Giovanni Malago was handed the flame inside the vast marble-clad stadium. This ceremony took place two months before the main event on February 6, 2026.

According to Malago, accompanied by a handful of officials, "Italy is proud of its Olympic heritage ... as we get ready to write the next chapter in our Olympic story.”

“It will be an incredible 63-day adventure. After two decades of waiting, the Olympic flame is returning to Italy,” he added.

Being a powerhouse of winter sports, Italy last hosted the Winter Olympics in 2006 with the Turin Games.

Jasmine Paolini, Italian Olympic tennis doubles champion, was the last torchbearer to carry the flame into the stadium, thereby ending the 9-day Greek relay.

The flame will begin its journey to Rome on Thursday. On December 6, it will embark on a 12,000-km Italian relay beginning at the city's Stadio dei Marmi.

The domestic tour will be carried out by 10,001 torchbearers and is designed to touch every town of Italy, visiting all 20 regions, 60 cities, 110 provinces, and 300 towns.

The flame will arrive in Cortina D’Ampezzo on January 26, and the relay will come to an end on February 6, 2026 at Milan's San Siro stadium.