One breath and the brazier of the Milan Cortina 2026 Olympics went out, it will be rekindled on March 6 for the Paralympics. While waiting, there remains a thread of melancholy that always accompanies everything that demobilizes, more than everything that, being an unrepeatable time of a place, is destined not to return.
There were many people this morning under the Arch of Peace in Milan, to see the last hours of the Olympic flame, on a sunny Sunday morning, with still a few children in masks late for the Ambrosian Shrove Saturday, which in turn is late for the rest of the world already in Lent.
Still many children lined up to hug the puppet of the Olympic mascot Tina in front. And a long queue at the stores in search of the last remaining affordable gadgets that have not yet sold out. We will remain open until the end of the Paralympics, in reality, we will restock. But it seems that as far as Tina is concerned, there won’t be any online until late spring. And to say that among the mascots she wasn’t exactly the most attractive, poor thing: with Aster, the Turin 2006 Paralympic mascot, the most beautiful ever, there was really no competition.
Fairly even inevitable, the honor given to Arianna Fontana, the greatest Olympic legend, numbers in hand, to carry the lantern that welcomes the Olympic fire, during the elegant and very lyrical closing ceremony in the very suggestive setting of the Verona Arenabut it was a passage with a veil of melancholy: it evoked the thought that it is unlikely, although not impossible knowing her, that at 35 years old Arianna would have the desire and strength to face another round of five-circle skates.
The fact is that with Milan Cortina closing, the registry says that a cycle ends: many laps of honor, from Chicco Pellegrino to Dorothea Wierer, from Francesca Lollobrigida to Federica Brignone, from Arianna Fontana to Andrea Giovannini, passing through Roland Fishnaller who even arrived at his seventh Olympics here. Some towards exits already decided, others in doubt, but still there on the brink of a future to be redesigned. These are legends, certainties, monuments that have kept the blue snow and ice standing for at least fifteen yearswho if they don’t end phenomenal careers here, only with many unknowns and one step at a time will they get closer to the French Alps to which the baton was passed this evening.
Thinking about what these names have given you feel a touch of anticipated nostalgia, at the idea of having to do without their contribution sooner or later you feel a little lost like Linus whose blanket was stolen by Snoopy.
It’s not just a question of generational changes and sporting cycles, nor of the cynical calculation of certain medals that you can’t count on endlessly for your treasure chest, it’s that you become attached to your Olympic legends. One wishes they would never end.
