Closing ceremony filled with opera, acrobatics wraps up Milano-Cortina Olympics

Flag-bearers Valérie Maltais and Steven Dubois top team up Canada at closure ceremonial

The Olympic flame is extinguished at Milano Cortina 2026

O Canada: A love letter to the 2026 Milano-Cortina Olympic Games

Look back at every goal Canada's men's Olympic hockey team scored at Milano Cortina 2026

Look back at every goal Canada's women's Olympic hockey team scored at Milano Cortina 2026

Flag-bearers Valérie Maltais and Steven Dubois lead Team Canada at closing ceremony

Canadian Valérie Maltais receives her 1500-metre speed skating bronze medal at Milano Cortina 2026

Canada's Steven Dubois skates to short track 500m Olympic gold

Canada's Courtney Sarault wins her 4th Olympic medal with bronze in short track women's 3,000m relay

Mikaël Kingsbury soars to Canada’s 1st gold of 2026 Olympics

Valérie Maltais reflects on earning her 1st individual Olympic speed skating medal

Team Canada will go home with 21 medals from Milano Cortina 2026 — including five gold, seven silver and nine bronze.

It may not be our best Winter Olympics — that was the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics where we won 29 medals — but it does cement Canada as one of the Winter Games' most consistently successful countries.

Canada's athletes also had some record-breaking victories.

That includes Mikaël Kingsbury, who became the most decorated male freestyle skier of all time with his silver medal in men's moguls. Kingsbury topped that off with a gold medal in men's dual moguls, which also happened to be Canada's first gold of the Games.

Marc Kennedy also became the first person to win three Olympic curling medals when the men’s team won gold against Great Britain. That win also made Brad Jacobs the first skip to ever win two gold medals.

Next up: French Alps 2030.

Similar to Milano-Cortina, where events took place across multiple sites in northern Italy, French Alps 2030 are expected to be spread across four main areas — Haute-Savoie, Savoie, Briançon and Nice.

Finally, the characters of the opera walk back into their crates and rest under the arena.

Italian singer-songwriter Achille Lauro is performing his song Incoscienti Giovani to help close out the ceremony.

To close, the ceremony comes full circle back to the opera. Rigoletto turns the lights back on, figuratively, for a bit of a concert.

Major Lazer, the U.S. Group behind 2015's Lean On, is performing with guests MØ, Nyla and Alfa.

The Olympic flame is extinguished at Milano Cortina 2026

During the closing ceremony of the Milano Cortina 2026 the Olympic flame is extinguished marking the official end of the games.

In an Olympic first, the flame will now be extinguished in two different places: Milan and Cortina. Pianist Gloria Campaner performs a new orchestration of Ludovico Einaudi's Experience.

France is no stranger to hosting the Winter Olympics. They hosted the very first Winter Games in 1924, and hosted twice after that with Grenoble 1968 and Albertville 1992.

After a video from the French Alps, it's on to the official speeches. First up is Giovanni Malagò, president of the organizing committee for the Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games Milano Cortina 2026. Then, it's IOC president Coventry to close it out.

We're now seeing a segment from the next Winter Olympics host, which is meant to represent a new dawn against a reimagining of La Marseillaise, the French national anthem. Opera singer Marine Chagnon performs the new rendition by composer Thomas Roussel.

We're getting to the end now with some official protocol. As tradition, Italy will hand the Olympic flag over to the next host of the Winter Olympics: the French Alps.

The mayors of the two Italian host cities, Milan and Cortina, hand over the flag. The Italian Air Force’s honour guard raises the French flag.

The Greek flag is also raised with its national anthem, followed by the same for the Olympic flag and anthem.

Now there's a tribute to the planet, with references to water and sunlight. Italian dancer étoile Roberto Bolle is performing an aerial sequence, which organizers described as one of the most complicated scenes of the entire ceremony. It's also a first for Bolle.

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