EOC President Spyros Capralos today attended the historic Olympic Flame Lighting Ceremony for the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic Winter Games at the Archaeological Museum of Olympia.
The ceremony, traditionally held at the Temple of Hera, was moved indoors due to adverse weather conditions. However, it remained true to tradition having been lit on Monday using the sun’s rays and a parabolic mirror before being transferred to the official Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic torch during the ceremony.
President Capralos joined guests including IOC President Kirsty Coventry, the President of the Hellenic Republic Constantine An. Tassoulas and the President of the Greek NOC Isidoros Kouvelos.
IOC Honorary President Thomas Bach, Milano Cortina 2026 Organising Committee President Giovanni Malagò, Chair of the IOC’s Milano Cortina 2026 Coordination Commission Kristin Kloster, President of the Italian NOC Luciano Buonfiglio, Italian Minister of Sport and Youth Andrea Abodi, and the Mayor of Olympia Aristeidis Panagiotopoulos were also in attendance.
During the ceremony, Paris 2024 Olympic rowing bronze medallist Petros Gkaidatzis of Greece became the first torchbearer, followed by two-time Olympic cross-country skiing champion Stefania Belmondo and two-time Olympic luge champion Armin Zöggeler.
President Coventry, attending her first Olympic Flame Lighting Ceremony in her new role, emphasised the significance of the occasion.
She said: “We are extremely happy that today’s ceremony reminds us what the Games stand for. They are about bringing people together in peaceful competition, in friendship and in respect.
“As we light the Olympic flame for Milano Cortina, we will carry this light from the past to the present and into the future. And it’s a shared future that we all want to see. This is why we firmly believe in the Olympic Truce. In laying down our differences and wanting to hope for a brighter future.”
The Olympic Flame will now travel across Greece before the official handover ceremony at the Panathenaic Stadium in Athens on 4 December.
It will spend 5 December in Rome before the Olympic Torch Relay in Italy begins the following day. The Relay will visit all 20 regions and 110 provinces of Italy and cover 12,000km before reaching Milan for the Opening Ceremony on 6 February 2026.
Sustainability is at the heart of the Relay, with the Olympic torch burning bioLPG made from renewable sources and each one is able to be reused and refilled up to 10 times.
The Olympic Winter Games will take place from 6 to 22 February 2026, marking a return to Europe for the first time in more than a decade.
