2026 Winter Olympics flame to be lit in ancient Olympia

Actress Mary Mina playing the role of high priestess performs during the final rehearsal ahead of the flame lighting for the Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics, at the archaeological museum of Olympia, Greece, Tuesday, Nov. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis)

The sacred flame for the 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics in Italy will be lit in ancient Olympia, Greece on Wednesday, with poor weather forcing last-minute changes by the organizers.

Held February 6-22, the 2026 Winter Games take place in Italy for the third time, and the first time in western Europe since the Turin Games in 2006.

The ceremony to light the Olympic flame is usually held at the ruins of the 2,600-year-old Temple of Hera, near the stadium where the Olympics were born in 776 BC.

But a rainy weather forecast means the sun’s rays will not be able to light the parabolic mirror used by actresses in the garb of ancient priestesses.

Organizers have instead moved the ceremony to the nearby Olympia archaeological museum, where one of Greece’s most famous classical sculptures, Hermes and the Infant Dionysus by Praxiteles, is housed.

And a flame lit on Monday, during an outdoor rehearsal under the sun, will be used on Wednesday.

The ceremony for the Paris Olympics in April 2024 had also been carried out using a reserve flame from a rehearsal.

The new president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), Kirsty Coventry, elected in March, will attend the ritual for the first time as the head of the organization.

Greece’s rowing bronze medallist at the 2024 Paris Games, Petros Gaidatzis, has been selected to be the first torchbearer to launch the Greek leg of the Olympic flame relay.

Trip to Pompeii

The original pick, Greek-American alpine ski racer AJ Ginnis, was injured during training last week.

According to the organizers, former Italian cross-country ski champion Stefania Belmondo and luge legend Armin Zoeggeler will be among the first torchbearers on the Greek leg of the relay.

Following a Dec. 4 handover ceremony at the Panathenaic Stadium in Athens, where the first modern Olympics were revived in 1896, the flame heads to Rome for a 63-day, 12,000-kilometre (7,500-mile) course through Italy’s major cities and the archaeological site of Pompeii.

The Paralympic Winter Games will be held March 6-15.

The events will span a vast area from Milan to the Dolomite mountains in Italy’s north-east.

Ice sports will be held in Milan while Bormio and Cortina host alpine skiing.

Across the Dolomites the biathlon will be in Anterselva and Nordic skiing in Val di Fiemme, with Livigno in the Italian Alps hosting snowboarding and freestyle skiing.

Even though the outdoor events are at a sufficiently high altitude, organizers of the Milan-Cortina Games are stockpiling artificial snow, just in case.

The 2026 organizing committee has said it plans to make 2.4 million cubic metres of artificial snow, which will require 948,000 cubic metres of water.

Italy is the European country that uses the most artificial snow, with over 90 per cent of Italy’s ski slopes using artificial snowmaking systems, according to an April report from Italian environmental group Legambiente.

According to a December 2024 study published in the International Journal of Climatology, the snow cover in the Italian Alps had decreased by half in the past 100 years.