MILAN — The Milan Cortina Winter Olympics officially get underway today with a multi-site opening ceremony spread across northern Italy.
It will be an unusual opening ceremony, reflecting the most spread-out Olympics ever, with the main event in Milan and additional ceremonies and athlete parades in Predazzo, Livigno and Cortina d’Ampezzo.
Moguls skier Mikaël Kingsbury, of Deux-Montagnes, Que., and ski cross racer Marielle Thompson, of Whistler, B.C., both Olympic gold-medallists, will carry the Canadian flag in Livigno.
Figure skating competition got underway Friday, with Canada sitting fifth after Day 1 of the team event in Milan.
Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier scored 85.79 points in their rhythm dance to “Supermodel” by RuPaul at Milano Ice Skating Arena.
Trennt Michaud and Lia Pereira — skating in place of former world champions Deanna Stellato-Dudek and Maxime Deschamps — placed fourth in the pairs short program, while Madeline Schizas finished sixth in women’s singles for a total of 19 points in the standings.
The United States, led by three-time world ice dance champions Madison Chock and Evan Bates, topped the standings with 25 points, followed by Japan with 23 and Italy with 22.
In Cortina, the Canadian mixed doubles curling team of Brett Gallant and Jocelyn Peterman dropped a 7-5 decision to the American duo of Korey Dropkin and Cory Thiesse on Friday morning.
Dropkin made a double-takeout and stuck his shooter to set up a three-point seventh end that broke a 4-4 tie.
Canada was unable to generate any scoring opportunities in the eighth end and settled for a single, falling to 3-1 in round-robin play. The Americans improved to 3-0.
Canadian alpine skiers took part in downhill training, with the women training in Cortina d’Ampezzo at the Tofane Alpine Skiing Centre and the men on the Stelvio Ski Centre course in Bormio.
Toronto’s James (Jack) Crawford was fastest at one minute 54.95 seconds, while fellow Canadian Jeffrey Read of Canmore, Alta., was eighth at 1:58.01.
Only 22 of the 44 racers recorded a time, with Crawford one of the few racers who put in a full run.
Some skipped the final run entirely, including Cameron Alexander of North Vancouver, B.C.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 6, 2026.
The Canadian Press
