Summer Olympians begin torch relay for Milan Cortina Winter Games on 2-month countdown

ROME (AP) — Olympic swimming champion Gregorio Paltrinieri and fellow Summer athletes started the torch relay for the Milan Cortina Winter Games on Saturday — marking exactly two months before the Feb. 6 opening ceremony.

Paltrinieri carried the sleek torch around the track of the statue-lined Stadio dei Marmi at the Foro Italico to begin a trek covering 12,000 kilometers (nearly 7,500 miles) that will wind its way through all 110 Italian provinces before reaching Milan’s San Siro Stadium for the opening ceremony.

“It’s a pleasure to be part of the Olympic movement even if it’s Winter Olympics,” Paltrinieri said.

In all, there will be 10,001 torch bearers.

At the end of the opening day, police said they stopped two groups of pro-Palestinian activists from coming into contact with the relay route.

Giancarlo Peris, the final torch bearer from the 1960 Olympics in Rome, carried the Olympic flame in a lantern to get the proceedings going. The 84-year-old Peris was 18 when he lit the cauldron at the Stadio Olimpico — which is next to the Stadio dei Marmi — more than 65 years ago.

“I didn’t think I would be here today,” Peris said with a chuckle.

Paltrinieri won gold in the 1,500 meters at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games and has five Olympic medals in all. He and girlfriend Rossella Fiamingo, a fencer, carried Italy’s flag at the closing ceremony for last year’s Paris Games.

“I used to ski when I was a kid but then I stopped because it’s a little bit dangerous for me,” Paltrinieri said. “Skiing is my favorite (Winter Olympic sport). … Alberto Tomba was one of my biggest idols.”

Paltrinieri handed off to retired fencer Elisa Di Francisca, who won two golds at the 2012 London Games.

Next was Gianmarco Tamberi, the 2020 Olympic high jump champion.

Also carrying the torch around Rome on Saturday were tennis player Matteo Berrettini, retired NBA player Andrea Bargnani and former motorcycle racer Max Biaggi.

Actor Ricky Tognazzi carried the torch while riding a white Vespa in a scene reminiscent of the 1953 film “Roman Holiday” featuring Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck.

The torch relay, which includes 60 city celebrations, will be in Naples for Christmas and in Bari for New Year’s Eve. It will reach 2006 Olympics host Turin on Jan 11.

The torch will arrive in Verona on Jan. 18 and pass through Cortina d’Ampezzo on Jan. 26 — on the 70th anniversary of the opening ceremony of the 1956 Winter Olympics held at the resort in the Dolomites.

There will also be a cauldron lit in Cortina on the night of the opening ceremony.

Local organizing committee president Giovanni Malagò noted the torch relay will pass by all of the country’s UNESCO World Heritage sites, of which Italy has more than any other country with 61.

“It’s like a giant two-month advertisement,” Malagò said.

These Games will be held across a large swath of northern Italy and the ceremony will be observed in four different locations, including Livigno (where snowboarding and freestyle skiing will be contested) and Predazzo (ski jumping).

Skating sports will be in Milan; men’s Alpine skiing and ski mountaineering in Bormio; and women’s Alpine skiing, sliding sports and curling in Cortina.

The next stops on the torch relay are Viterbo on Sunday and Terni on Monday.

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