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2026 Winter Olympic Games in Italy

Italy to host opening ceremony for Milano Cortina Winter Olympics

A total of 116 sets of medals will be awarded in 16 sports disciplines at the Olympics in Italy

MILAN, February 6. /TASS/. The Opening Ceremony for the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games will begin at the San Siro stadium in Italy’s Milan at 8:26 p.m. local time (7:26 p.m. GMT) on Friday.

While Russian athletes will not take part in the ceremony, they may attend as spectators.

A total of 116 sets of medals will be awarded in 16 sports disciplines at the Olympics in Italy, which is seven more than at the previous 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing. The men’s and women’s parallel moguls in freestyle skiing, women’s two-man luge races, women’s ski jumping, and mixed skeleton team competitions were added. A new Ski Mountaineering competition is also on the Olympic program for the first time, set to include both men’s and women’s sprints, as well as team competitions.

Russian athletes will compete for Olympic medals under a neutral status. Russia will be represented by 13 contenders, including figure skaters Adelia Petrosyan and Pyotr Gumennik, short track speed skaters Alyona Krylova and Ivan Posashkov, skiers Darya Nepryayeva and Savely Korostelev, speed skaters Ksenia Korzhova and Anastasia Semyonova, ski mountaineer Nikita Filippov, lugers Daria Olesik and Pavel Repilov, as well as downhill skiers Yulia Pleshkova and Semyon Yefimov.

Skier Nepryayeva and speed skater Korzhova will be the first Russian athletes to compete in Cortina: the former will take part in a skiathlon event, and the latter will race 3,000 meters on February 7. Also on Saturday, Repilov will perform in the first luge runs of the men’s singles.

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