Ballet star Roberto Bolle will headline 2026 Winter Olympics closing ceremony in Verona

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VERONA, Italy (AP) — Internationally acclaimed ballet star Roberto Bolle will headline the 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics closing ceremony, titled “Beauty in Motion,” in Verona’s ancient Roman amphitheater, one of the world’s oldest, organizers announced Thursday.

The Feb. 22 closing event will pay homage to the city of Verona — which is a UNESCO world heritage site — and the Arena’s role as the venue for a famous summer opera festival, while celebrating athletic excellence and addressing climate change, said Alfredo Accatino, artistic director for the closing ceremony.

“If the climate continues to change, there won’t be Winter Olympics anymore,’’ Accatino lamented.

The central stage within the nearly 2,000-year-old Arena will be shaped like a waterdrop, symbolically uniting the mountain venues with the fertile Po River Valley, where Milan and Verona are located, and the Venetian lagoon, Accatino said.

Bolle, who performed at the opening ceremony for the 2006 Winter Olympic Games in Turin, is a familiar sight at the Arena, where he travels each summer with his “Roberto Bolle and Friends” annual gala. He is the only talent announced so far.

The 2026 Winter Games (Feb. 6-22) will be the first with two official host cities, Milano in Lombardy and Cortina in the Dolomites of Veneto. The opening and closing ceremonies will also be held in two different cities: Milan and Verona

The addition of Verona, an elegant city of cobbled streets nestled along the winding Adige River and against pre-Alpine mountains, has generated excitement among the delegations more accustomed to sports venues, said Giovanni Malagò, president of the Milan Cortina Foundation local organizing committee.

"This will be a great advertisement for Verona," Malagò said. “It is quite obvious that the atmosphere will be completely different from a sports stadium. There is a lot of curiosity to come here.”

Centrally located among the far-flung Olympic venues, Verona is shaping up to be a base for many Olympic visitors, not just a destination for the Feb. 22 closing ceremony, Mayor Damiano Tommasi said, citing hotel reservation trends.

Verona is about an hour and 15 minutes by train from Milan, where ice sports are being held, and is just over three hours by car to Bormio, the venue for men’s downhill, and about the same to Cortina, where women’s downhill, curling and bobsled will be held.

Organizers said they were still finalizing the number of tickets to be sold for the closing ceremony. The Arena di Verona typically holds about 15,000 spectators during opera season, but the closing ceremony capacity will be lower because the central stage will be expanded and many seats are reserved for athletes and official delegations