Hello from Milan and Cortina, the place the motion picked up with the U.S. girls’s hockey and combined double curling groups forward of tomorrow’s opening ceremony.
Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio prompted a bit of a stir once they attended one of the hockey matches. Our reporter Andrew Greif took in the scene.
More behind-the-scenes moments and particulars on tomorrow’s ceremony from our correspondents under. And of course, catch all of the Games streaming on Peacock.
Live from Milan Cortina
Today started with curling, the place Great Britain, Sweden, the United States and Italy all picked up wins in combined doubles round-robin play.
We have been purported to get a peek at Lindsey Vonn in downhill coaching for Alpine snowboarding, however that session was canceled as a consequence of poor climate. Vonn is trying to compete although she tore her ACL final week.
In girls’s ice hockey, Sweden, Italy and the United States all gained their first sport in the preliminary spherical. Team USA dominated its matchup in opposition to Czechia, successful 5-1. The States outshot their opponent a whopping 42-14, and captain Hilary Knight scored her first purpose of the Games.
The Finland-Canada girls’s hockey sport was postponed as a consequence of a norovirus outbreak among Finland’s team. Thirteen gamers have been both sick or put in quarantine, pushing the match to subsequent week.
The night time concluded with qualifying in males’s massive air snowboarding and a coaching session in males’s ski leaping.
Behind the Scenes
A dispatch from our reporter Andrew Greif:
For the subsequent two weeks, the Milano Rho Ice Hockey Arena will host the world’s finest gamers competing in a single of the most watched Olympic sports activities. Fans of the Games will see so much of this non permanent venue, which on the exterior is sandwiched into a fancy of hangar-like buildings that often host commerce gala’s and enterprise expos.
But inside, the low ceiling and small quantity of seats create an intimate and electrical ambiance. When gamers from the United States and Czechia whacked their sticks on the ice in unison throughout warmups, the sound rattled out like a shot.
And in a spot this small, nothing goes unobserved. Few followers have been watching hockey early in the first interval when Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President JD Vance arrived to observe an eventual U.S. victory over Czechia. A buzz went by way of the area as photographers and safety rapidly moved to get into place. Vance watched alongside his spouse and young children. They mingled with dignitaries — together with Tilman Fertitta, the U.S. ambassador to Italy and the proprietor of the NBA’s Houston Rockets, and previous U.S. Olympian Apolo Anton Ohno — and stayed by way of the sport’s finish.
A Grand Spectacle Awaits
After months of preparation, the opening ceremony of the Milan Cortina Olympic Games will kick off tomorrow at San Siro stadium. It will function elaborate tributes to Italian tradition and Olympic historical past, and performances from world-class musicians together with the pianist Lang Lang who, like the athletes themselves, have been ready for this massive stage.
“The process of making classical music and [of] the sports athletes are quite similar,” Lang Lang advised NBC News a day earlier than the ceremony. “A lot of hard work among many hours of practice. And then the moment comes, the glorious moment comes, you have to give everything.”
The ceremony will begin at 2 p.m. ET (8 p.m. in Milan). About 70,000 individuals are anticipated to attend. They ought to anticipate to see a section celebrating designer Giorgio Armani, a tribute to 100 years of the Olympics (together with wood skis), and musical set items that includes parts of classical Italian opera. Mariah Carey is predicted to sing in Italian.
The star is likely to be the Milan Cortina Olympic cauldron, which was modeled after the intricate knot design of Leonardo da Vinci’s “Nodi Vinciani.” The cauldron might be saved at the Arco della Pace, and it’ll increase and retract consistently all through the Games.
Photo of the day
When to observe
Tomorrow is an enormous day right here, with the starting of determine skating, extra curling and ladies’s hockey — and of course the opening ceremony!
Here’s the full schedule (all occasions Eastern):
Friday, Feb. 6
- 3:55 a.m.: Figure skating: Team occasion girls’s quick, rhythm dance, pairs quick
- 4:05 a.m.: Mixed doubles curling round-robin (Sweden-Great Britain, Italy-Switzerland, USA-Canada)
- 6:10 a.m.: Women’s hockey pool play (France-Japan)
- 8:35 a.m.: Mixed doubles curling round-robin (Czechia-USA, Estonia-Italy, South Korea-Great Britain, Sweden-Norway)
- 8:40 a.m.: Women’s hockey pool play (Czechia-Switzerland)
- 2 p.m.: Opening ceremony
The Games are (actually) about to start of us. See you right here tomorrow.