Winter Olympics Gold Medals capped Milan Cortina as winter olympics gold medals were handed out in Verona

At the Arena di Verona on Sunday the Milan Cortina Games closed with a ceremony that mixed opera, acrobatics and pyrotechnics, and that marked the end of two weeks of competition and 116 sets of medals across 16 sports. The handing out of winter olympics gold medals, capped by a dramatic sweep in the men’s cross-country 50k, brought thousands of athletes, coaches and fans together in a stones‑and‑song farewell.

Arena di Verona: ancient stone, modern spectacle

The closing ceremony was staged in the Arena di Verona, built about 2, 000 years ago to host gladiator games and ringed by stone arches dating back to the first century AD. The venue has survived an earthquake in 1117, a stint as a quarry and hundreds of years of operas and concerts, and on Sunday it hosted a ceremony that mixed high art with fireworks — listed simply in the program as Fire.

Opera characters, costumes and Calibro 35 set the tone

The event offered iconic opera characters, elaborate costumes, opera singing, acrobatics and dance, with live music onstage. Unlike the opening ceremony’s hours‑long parade of nations, athletes emerged in one long throng to the sound of Calibro 35, one of Italy’s alternative bands, playing live.

How athletes arrived: lifted, spinning and shoulder-high

The mood was loose and celebratory once competition was over. One German athlete entered the arena lifted overhead by her teammate. Latvia’s athletes came in with a synchronized dance, hands on their hips and spinning each other around. Multiple members of Team USA entered on teammates’ shoulders. With winners and losers already decided, many athletes simply savored the moment.

Norway’s sweep of Winter Olympics Gold Medals and the 50k podium

The ceremony also served as the stage for the Games’ winter equivalent of marathon medal presentation: the grueling 50k cross‑country skiing competition winners received their medals on the arena stage. Women’s gold went to Sweden’s Ebba Andersson, who had come back from a two‑fall, broken ski performance last week to take the win. Men’s gold went to Norway’s Johannes Høsflot Klæbo, who swept all six men’s cross‑country skiing competitions and set a new all‑time Winter Olympic gold medal record. Norway, which won the most overall medals and the most golds during these Games, swept the men’s 50k podium, taking all three of the final medals handed out at the Milan Cortina Olympics.

Kirsty Coventry’s closing remarks and the Heraskevych controversy

International Olympic Committee president Kirsty Coventry closed out the Games with concluding remarks meant to strike a tone of unity and sentimentality, even as she had faced controversy during the Milan Cortina Games for the decision to ban Ukraine’s Vladsylav Heraskevych. Heraskevych insisted on competing with a helmet depicting Ukrainian athletes killed since Russia’s invasion, but he was disallowed because of IOC rules prohibiting political statements during competition.

Addressing the athletes, Coventry said: "This is the true Olympic spirit, competing, embracing, lifting each other up, whatever the result, you showed us what excellence, respect and friendship look like in a world that often forgets these values. " She added, "You showed us that the Olympic Games are a place for everyone, a place where sport brings us together. "

From scattered venues to a single farewell in Verona

If the opening ceremony emphasized the unprecedented spread‑out nature of these Games — scattered across Milan and Cortina with mountain towns in between — the closing ceremony brought them back together. There were no satellite ceremonies for this event: thousands of athletes, coaches, staff, volunteers, journalists and fans drove winding roads down from the mountains or took trains from the cities to Verona.

The original account of the ceremony ends mid‑sentence with "Soon they will ma, " unclear in the provided context.