With Olympic flame lit, it's time to enjoy the real beauty of the Games

No matter the geopolitical madness, no matter state-sponsored drug cheats, no matter the eternal hypocrisy from the IOC to stay politically neutral amid dealing with totalitarian regimes, here is the ultimate truism about the Olympics.

The athletes always save it.

They are why we watch. They are why we believe in the Olympic mythology. They are why the Olympics continue to possess some magic dust for me.

As a kid, my dream was to attend one Olympics as a fan. As an adult, I found myself in a lottery ticket job at Sports Illustrated that allowed me to cover seven Olympics onsite, from Salt Lake City in 2002 to Sochi in 2014. At every one of these Games, from sun-baked Athens to Putin’s Potemkin village on the Black Sea, the athletes always won me over.

The Olympics provided me with one of the greatest sporting events I’ve witnessed in person — Canada’s 3-2 overtime win over the United States in the women’s hockey gold-medal game in Sochi. With her team leading 2-1 late in the third period and Canada having pulled goaltender Shannon Szabados for an extra skater, U.S. forward Kelli Stack found the puck on her stick in her own zone and aimed for history. Her clearing attempt traveled the length of the ice and clanged off the post, missing by an inch. An inch to the right and history changes. That’s the magic of sports and the Olympics. It’s a two-week journey of best on best competing from across the planet in sports often as exotic as the Galapagos Islands.

The CBC has an army of great people who will bring you the Milano-Cortina Olympic Games from every possible angle. You will find plenty of content here on Team Canada athletes and their quest to own the podium.

As someone with roots both in America and Canada and as a lover of global sports, I’ll be writing a daily column through Feb. 22 that focuses on the global athletes competing in Italy.

Part of this column will recap the biggest non-Canadian story of the Olympic day. Part of it will look forward to events you should focus on the following day. I’ll also attempt to lead you to great Olympic writing from around the planet too. Thanks for coming along.

So it begins

Harmony was the desired theme of Friday’s opening ceremony, at least according to the production director of the event, and the Olympics has often succeeded with the magic trick of creating a bubble of peace and love as hell breaks outside the bubble. The ceremony felt very Italian and cheeky, as if an opera was about to break out at every turn. Style, culture, music, previous Olympics, even the paparazzi were celebrated. (Not everything was Italian: The event planners imported a singer from Huntington, New York named Mariah Carey to sing “Volare.”)

International soccer fans were quite familiar with the main venue — the San Siro, the 99-year-old cathedral of Italian football, home to Inter Milan and AC Milan and nicknamed La Scala del calcio. It was quite a different look to have the Parade of Nations in three additional locations — the mountain venues of Cortina, Predazzo and Livigno — but it’s one that should carry beyond these Games because it gives more athletes the chance to participate. The Parade of Nations has long been for me the best part of the OC, and it made me happy to see how loud the cheers were for the Ukrainian athletes.

For the first time, two Olympic cauldrons were lit simultaneously — one at Milan's Arco della Pace (Peace Arch) and the other in Cortina's Piazza Dibona. The ending was lovely. Mission accomplished for the production team.

Who will star on Saturday?

If you are the type of Olympic fan who must see everything live, you’ll need to wake up early Saturday to catch the men’s downhill (5:30 a.m. ET). Keep your eye on the Swiss. Marco Odermatt has won three downhills and finished second in six World Cup downhills this season He will ski out of the No. 7 spot. Fellow Swiss Franjo von Allmen has a name that sounds like an international Bond villain but in this world, the 24-year-old enters as a medal favourite after winning his second downhill of the season at Crans-Montana last Sunday. Dominik Paris, at 36, is considered the King of Bormio, and rising star Giovanni Franzoni are ones to watch for the home country. Ryan Cochtan-Siegele is a threat for the U.S.

Numbers to know

3,442 - Numbers of metres for the alpine skiing course at The Stelvio Ski Centre.

2,419 - Days between when the 2026 Games were awarded to the Italian cities of Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo and Friday’s opening ceremony.

44 - Number of Olympic medals won by the Olympic commentators who will work for the American broadcaster NBC.

38 - Gold medals won by Germany in luge since 1964, including 11 of the last 12.

Cheap promotion

In the event you missed it when it first published, here’s a piece I wrote on how North American rights-holders CBC, and NBC are exploring new technology and cultural changes for Games coverage

Olympic imagery

Check out these beautiful photos curated by AP photo editors. Team USA hockey star Hilary Knight offered fans a behind-the-scenes look at Olympic lodging.

What we're reading around the web

► Lindsey Vonn’s latest Olympic quest isn’t perfect, but it’s her own. By Tim Layden of NBC Sports

► The Olympics have a history of overcoming the darkest of forecasts. But Milan Cortina feels different. By Bruce Arthur, Toronto Star

► Milan Cortina are the most spread-out Olympics ever. What this means for fans and athletes. By Colleen Berry of The Associated Press

► How Johannes Høsflot Klæbo went from ‘average Joe’ to world’s best cross-country skier. By Jacob Whitehead of The Athletic.

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