Rome (Italy). On 6 February 2026, the XXV Winter Olympic Games, Milano Cortina 2026, will open in Milan with the opening ceremony at the San Siro Olympic Stadium. Until February 22, approximately 3,000 athletes from over 90 Nations will compete in eight sports and 16 sport disciplines on ice and snow, for a total of 116 events.
Following the previous edition in Beijing, China in 2022, the Games are being held in Italy for the third time (Cortina d’Ampezzo, 1956; Turin, 2006), involving three regions – Lombardy, Veneto, and Trentino Alto Adige – which will provide ski facilities and venues for the competitions.
The Milan Cortina 2026 event was preceded by the passage of the Olympic Torch across the entire Italian peninsula, with the aim of conveying a message of peace and friendship along its route. Starting in Olympia, Greece on 26 November 2025, the Milan Cortina 2026 Olympic Flame journey reached Rome on 4 December, and then continued on to all 110 Provinces of the Country.
The Olympic Torch, with its unmistakable and functional design, passed through the hands of 10,001 torchbearers – male and female athletes from Olympic and Paralympic disciplines, champions of the Summer and Winter Olympic Games, well-known personalities from the entertainment world, and “ordinary people,” selected through public application, all united by a great passion for sport – and visited 60 cities, covering a total of 12,000 kilometers in 63 days.
Among the torchbearers was Matteo, a young man from the oratory in Castellanza, in the province of Varese, where the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians of Holy Family Province (ILO) are present.
His passion for sports – he says in an interview on the website fmalombardia.it – blossomed right in the oratory, and the first passion that ignited in him, from a very young age, was that of the torch that every year starts from a Marian sanctuary and is passed from hand to hand until it reaches the Oratories of Castellanza.
Here are some of Matteo’s responses, which perfectly interpret the value of the Olympic Games, experienced with an Oratorian and Salesian style that aims at the integral development of the person, within a relationship with others based on respect, esteem, and shared responsibility, towards building a world where human dignity and equality for all are respected:
How did you end up carrying the Olympic torch? Why did you apply? I decided to apply to be a torchbearer because I consider myself a very sporty person who strongly believes in sport as a vehicle for values: respect for others and for oneself, collaboration, especially in team sports, sacrifice, hard work, and healthy fun. Sport, therefore, has its importance both at an educational and social level.
What do the Olympics say to a young Christian? Sport and being a Christian have many things in common, starting with the values they convey. Respect for others and the ability to value one’s own talents, to name a few. The Olympic spirit, likewise, is guided by the same principles.
What is the most important value of sports? What values of sports are necessary for becoming an adult? I would like parents to instill in their children the importance of playing sports, whatever sport it may be. For them to grow and mature, it is fundamental that young people participate in sports, confronting reality, which is made up of hard work, difficulties to overcome, and encounters with other people, each with their own strengths and weaknesses, and each different from the other.
One of the important values that sport has the power to transmit, beyond rivalry and competition, is that of the much-desired peace. Pope Leo XIV, at the end of the Angelus on Sunday, 1 February, recalled this important event, hoping for a truce, which traditionally should accompany such sporting events:
“Next Friday, the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympic Games will begin, followed by the Paralympic Games. I extend my best wishes to the organizers and all the athletes. These great sporting events constitute a strong message of fraternity and rekindle hope for a world at peace. This is also the meaning of the Olympic truce, an ancient custom that accompanies the holding of the Games. I hope that all those who care about peace among peoples, and who hold positions of authority, will know how to take concrete steps towards détente and dialogue on this occasion.”
The President of the Italian Republic, Sergio Mattarella, also joined the Pope’s appeal on 2 February, welcoming the International Olympic Committee and speaking of sport as a “vehicle of hope”:
“This is a great global event that sends a message to our challenging times. Wars, disruptions to the serenity of international life, imbalances, and suffering bring darkness and wound the consciences of people.
Sport welcomes, produces joy, passion, and hope. It is respect for others. It is a challenge to one’s own limits; it is the freedom to progress. Sport is an encounter in peace; it testifies to fraternity in the fairness of competition with others. It is the opposite of a world where barriers and lack of communication prevail. It stands in opposition to violence which, practiced by anyone, generates more violence, tramples on human dignity, oppresses peoples, and sets back their quality of life.
We demand – with unwavering determination – that the Olympic truce be respected everywhere. May the unarmed power of sport silence the weapons.
Sport has great power in the world of global communications. The Games are an engaging tool for promoting peace and mutual understanding. ‘We must be the peace we wish to see in the world,’ said Martin Luther King.
From Milan and Cortina, from Bormio, from Livigno, from Anterselva, from Val di Fiemme, from Verona – which will host the opening ceremony of the Paralympic Games (March 6-15) – sport will present itself as a vehicle of this hope. A hope that unites people from all continents.”
