The Organising Committee of the 2026 Games has unveiled the routes of the Olympic and Paralympic Flames. The Olympic Flame's journey in Italy will start in Rome on 6 December 2025 and will be in Cortina d'Ampezzo on 26 January 2026 on the anniversary of the first Winter Olympic Games organised in Italy. After its ignition in Stoke Mandeville, the Paralympic Flame will travel 11 days and cover two thousand kilometres until it arrives at the Arena in Verona on 6 March.
Journey of the Olympic Flame
63 days of travel, 60 stage cities and 12 thousand kilometres to cover touching all 110 provinces of the peninsula. The Journey will start on 26 November 2025 in Olympia, with the lighting of the sacred fire 2, which will then arrive in Italy, in Rome, on 4 December from where, two days later, it will begin its journey. It will be in Naples at Christmas and will celebrate the New Year in Bari; on 26 January it will return, after exactly 70 years from the Opening Ceremony of the Games, to Cortina d'Ampezzo and will conclude its journey in Milan by making its entrance at the San Siro Stadium on the evening of Friday 6 February 2026. The route is also designed to pay homage to the great historical and cultural heritage of our country, which boasts the largest number of UNESCO sites in the world: the Flame will light up many of the 60 places on the World Heritage list.
Journey of the Paralympic Flame
The Paralympic Flame will travel 2,000 kilometres in 11 days and, from 24 February 2026 to 6 March 2026, the day of the Opening Ceremony of the Paralympic Games in the Arena of Verona, it will parade in the hands of 501 torchbearers.
After the ignition in the United Kingdom, the Paralympic Flame will animate 5 Flame Festivals from 24 February to 2 March in Milan, Turin, Bolzano, Trento and Trieste, with the Flame Unification Ceremony on 3 March in Cortina d'Ampezzo. From 4 March, the Flame will reach Venice and Padua, to make its entrance on 6 March at the Arena in Verona for the Opening Ceremony of the Paralympic Games. The Journey of the Paralympic Flame represents an event of extraordinary importance and significance, not only for Paralympic athletes but for all the communities it will pass through. Each stage of its journey will be a unique opportunity to show how sport can be a powerful tool for social change.
