The music swells and the flags are waved on stage before a burst of applause from the San Siro crowd.

Giovanni Malagò, President of the Organising Committee for the Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games Milano Cortina 2026, and IOC President Kirsty Coventry are here to welcome the athletes and the public.

This seems on the face of it to be a possibly risky segment, but here we go as Italian comedian and actress Brenda Lodigiani takes the audience - and the watching world - through Italian hand gestures.

It's a parallel language, and as anyone who's ever been to Italy knows, extremely expressive.

From beautiful, to asking for a coffee, from shushing people away to anything else.

It's all covered in a couple of minutes.

There's never a bad time to bring some musical theatre to the Olympics, and this is our time.

This musical is a single shot spanning from the 1920s to the 1990s and then the present day of Winter Olympics, with music, images, rhythm and movement.

There are 2D moving cut-outs, choreography, costumes and elements that create scenes like flipping pages of an animated book.

An animated version of actress Sabrina Impacciatore pops up in different sporting guises, and now she appears in person as we go from the Jazz Age onwards.

Who knew the 60s and 70s were so colourful? The fashion, the colours and the sound all changes.

Then it's the 80s and 90s, as snowboarding starts to get a guernsey in the winter world, and the beat drops in with a vengeance.

Now we get to the modern moment, with all the new disciplines of winter sport, the apparel is streamlined with fluoro and neon, and the techno lands.

The energy is up.

The music builds from Andrea Farri, Adriano Celentano and MACE.

After a bit of a wait, finally there is a huge roar for the Italian team, the third biggest in the Games with 195 athletes.

MACE switches it up to an amped-up chorus of "Figaro", and they come into the various venues with big smiles and waving to the ecstatic crowds.

This is the moment they have been waiting for!

There are four flagbearers, two at Milano and Cortina.

Short track speed skater Arianna Fontana is carrying the flag for the second time after having the honour in PyeongChang in 2018.

Also carrying the flag are Cross-Country skier Federico Pellegrino, Curler Amos Mosaner and Alpine Skier Federica Brignone.

If crowd vibes are any guide, this team is ready for a huge Games.

The French team come out second-last, not in alphabetical order but because they are the next hosts of the Winter Games in the French Alps in 2030.

Their flagbearers are snowboarder Chloe Trespeuch in Livigno and Alpine skier Clement Noel, also in Livigno,

It's time for the biggest team at the Winter Olympics!

The 232-strong team (plus three alternates) is always up for Olympics, Winter or Summer.

The flagbearers are Speed Skating defending champion Erin Jackson and Bobsleigh athlete Frankie del Duca.

Between freestyle skiers Lindsay Vonn and Mikaela Schiffrin, and snowboarder Chloe Kim, they are ready to make headlines. 

Scandinavian countries are always well represented at the Winter Olympics, and Sweden is no different.

They won seven gold medals in Beijing, and will be looking for something similar here.

Their flagbearers are Alpine Skier Sara Hector in Cortina, and Freestyle Skier Walter Wallberg in Livigno.

Now it's time for Slovenia to enter the Games.

We have more family connections here - Slovenia is very well known for its ski jumpers, and here we have two represented in the flagbearers.

In Predazzo, it's brother-sister combination Domen Prevc and Nika Prevc.

That's a pretty amazing effort from that family, although both their parents were competitive ski jumpers as well. You muight say it's a bit of a dynasty.

One of the traditional teams at the Winter Olympics, Netherlands makes its entrance.

The flagbearers are Skeleton racer Kimberley Bos in Cortina, and Short track Speed Skater Jens van T'Wout in Milano.

A quick mention for our friends across the Tasman.

The New Zealand team has 17 athletes, and the flagbearers are freestyle skier  Ben Barclay and snowboarder Zoe Sadowski Sinnott, who will be in the Snowboard Slopestyle and Big Air.