ROMA (ITALPRESS) – Centosessantaquattro tedofori in the first of the 63 days of relay. Among them four exceptional champions, protagonists of the ceremony that at the stadium of the marbles started the journey of the flame of the Winter Olympic Games of Milan Cortina 2026.
The first was the swimmer Gregorio Paltrinieri, winner of a gold, two silverware and two Olympic bronzes, who passed the witness to the Florentine Elisa Di Francisca, two golds and a five-round silver. Then the Olympic champion shift in the top jump of Tokyo 2020, Gianmarco Tamberi, who exchanged the flame with the Italian champion Achille Polonara. All in the presence of the Minister for Sport and the Young Andrea Abodi, the president of the Coni, Luciano Buonfiglio and the president of the Fondazione Milano Cortina 2026, Giovanni Malagò, who lit the braciere after receiving the lantern from Giancarlo Peris, last tedoforo of Rome 1960. Sixty-five years after the Olympic air inspires the desire of five circles of Capital.
Malagò recalled that “someone did not want to trust us in this city”, alluding to the blurred project of Rome 2024. Abodi, instead, recalled the sense of “cultivating the dream not to leave Rome but to arrive in Rome, as in 1960”. Meanwhile, the head of Paltrinieri and Tamberi is already projected in Los Angeles 2028. And while the swimmer dreams of a flag role (“I won the Games, I closed the Paris Olympics with the flag and open those of Milan-Cortina with the flame, now it would miss a little thing…”), ‘Gimbo’ dreams of revenge after the physical problems of Paris: “I hope to get there, it will be a long and complicated journey, but sport as life is made of difficulties.” U
A concept that Achille Polonara knows more than anyone else, engaged in his battle against leukemia: “This day was very exciting. It is already a success to be standing here: until a few weeks ago I was in a wheelchair”. The cestist brought the flame out of the plant. Then the journey to the streets of Capital with the contribution of great Italian names of sports and entertainment: from tennis player Matteo Berrettini to basketrs Gigi Datome and Andrea Bargnani, passing through the former motorcycling driver Max Biaggi; and still the director Giuseppe Tornatore, singers Noemi and Achille Lauro, actress Claudia Gerini and designer Lavinia Biagiotti. It is the beginning of a relay that, for 63 days, will cross 60 cities of stop, going over 12,000 kilometers and all 110 provinces.
– Photo IPA Agency –
(ITALPRESS).
