Winter Olympics - 2026 Milano-Cortina Winter Olympic Flame handover ceremony - Panathenaic Stadium, Athens, Greece - December 4, 2025 Actress Mary Mina in the role of a high priestess lights the Olympic torch during the ceremony REUTERS/Louisa Gouliamaki
ROME, Dec 5 (Reuters) - The Olympic flame will be lit on Friday morning in the square of Italy's presidential palace before starting its journey across the country ahead of the 2026 Winter Games.
The torch, ignited last month in ancient Olympia, the Greek birthplace of the ancient Games, was handed over in Athens to Italian organisers earlier this week.
A lantern holding the flame was brought to the Quirinale Palace on Thursday evening and put on display in the Sala delle Vetrate, the palace's ceremonial hall.
The Olympic flame will be lit in a cauldron set in Piazza del Quirinale in a ceremony that Italian President Sergio Mattarella and International Olympic Committee President Kirsty Coventry are expected to attend.
Perched on one of Rome's seven hills, the 16th-century Quirinale Palace was a papal and royal residence before becoming the home of Italy's head of state in 1946.
The Games will be co-hosted by Milan and the Dolomite resort of Cortina d'Ampezzo and run from February 6 to February 22.
Italy, a winter sports powerhouse, last hosted the Winter Olympics in 2006 in Turin.
The flame will leave Rome's Stadio dei Marmi on December 6 for a 12,000-km relay through Italy's 20 regions, 110 provinces and 60 cities, involving 10,001 torchbearers.
(Reporting by Antonio Denti and Giselda Vagnoni; Editing by Kate Mayberry)
