Published February 23, 2026
The Winter Olympics ended with the twin torches of the host cities of Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo extinguished during the closing ceremony at the ancient Verona Arena, located roughly halfway between the remote mountains, valleys and city venues, making it the most extensive Winter Olympics ever.
International Olympic Committee president Kirsty Coventry on Sunday declared the 2026 Games over, telling local organizers that they had “delivered a new kind of Winter Games and set new, very high standards for the future”.
The next Winter Olympics will be held in neighboring France, which received the Olympic flag in a formal handover at the beginning of the ceremony. Following the same decentralized model, the 2030 Winter Games will see competition held in the Mediterranean Alps and Nice, while speed skating will take place in Italy or the Netherlands.
During the 17-day competition period, a total of 116 medal events were won across 16 Olympic sports, including ski mountaineering, which debuted this year. The final events concluded a few hours before the ceremony, with the 50km mass start men’s and women’s cross country medals being presented by Coventry inside the arena.
Host country Italy won the most medals at a Winter Olympics with 30 medals, including 10 gold and six silver, surpassing the record of 20 medals set at the 1994 Lillehammer Olympics.
The closing ceremony paid homage to Italian dance and music, from lyrical opera to 20th-century Italian pop to Gabri Ponte’s DJ beats, with 1,500 athletes dancing to their feet as colorful confetti flew across the stage. Italian artist Achille Lauro said the last words with the song “Incoscienti Giovani”, or “Reckless Youth”, just before the athletes lined up who put their youthful energy to good use for these games.
The Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics spanned an area of 22,000 square kilometers (8,500 square miles), from ice sports in Milan to biathlon in Anterselva on the Austrian border, snowboarding and men’s downhill in Valtellina on the Swiss border, cross-country skiing in Val di Fiemme north of Verona, and women’s downhill, curling and sliding sports in Cortina d’Ampezzo.
The Closing Ceremony ended with the extinguishing of the Olympic flame in an unprecedented two cauldrons in Milan and Cortina. The footage was viewed in Verona via video link. In Verona, a light show is held instead of fireworks to avoid disturbing animals.
The opening ceremony of the Milan-Cortina Paralympic Games will also take place on March 6th at the Verona Arena, with matches to be held until March 15th.
