Inside the rehearsal tent
The Olympics are often spoken of in the language of medals, records and national tallies, but their most enduring power lies elsewhere. Long before the first race is run or the first jump is taken, the Games announce themselves through ceremony, ritual and spectacle. In Milan, inside a cavernous rehearsal tent near the San Siro stadium, that spectacle is being assembled not by stars alone but by hundreds of ordinary people. Classically trained dancers rehearse alongside amateurs, volunteers practise steps for hours, and an entire temporary world has been built to simulate a night that will last only a few hours but will be watched by millions. It is a reminder that the Olympics, at their best, are not merely a sporting event but a collective act of imagination, one that asks a nation to present its values to the world through art, discipline and shared effort.
What stands out in the preparations for the Milan–Cortina Winter Games is the deliberate emphasis on participation. Volunteers include professionals and pensioners, neighbours and shopkeepers, people who have little to gain except the memory of being part of something larger than themselves. This quiet democracy of effort runs counter to the increasingly commercial, hyper-curated image of global sport. In an age where mega-events are often reduced to branding exercises and exclusive enclosures, the sight of unpaid performers rehearsing for months restores some moral balance. It recalls a time when public rituals mattered because they were made by the public. For Italy, a country deeply conscious of its cultural inheritance, this blending of high art and everyday commitment is not accidental. It is a statement that excellence need not be elitist, and that national pride can still be built on shared labour rather than spectacle alone.
The theme chosen for the opening ceremony, harmony, could easily sound trite in a fractured world. Yet it gains weight precisely because of the times we live in. From Eastern Europe to West Asia, violence has become routine, and international institutions appear increasingly brittle. Against this backdrop, the Olympic ideal of respectful competition and temporary truce feels less like nostalgia and more like defiance. Sport cannot end wars, but it can remind societies of alternative ways of relating to one another. The very act of athletes marching together, flags raised but weapons absent, remains one of the few surviving global rituals of peaceful rivalry. When a ceremony foregrounds harmony, it is not denying conflict; it is insisting that conflict is not the only organising principle of human life.
The scale and geography of the 2026 Games underline another modern tension. These will be the most geographically spread-out Olympics in history, stitched together by technology, logistics and broadcast innovation. Flames will be lit in two cities hundreds of kilometres apart, athletes will appear on screens from distant venues, and the ceremony itself will rely on precision planning to overcome physical distance. This dispersion mirrors our own era, where communities are connected digitally but separated physically, where shared moments are increasingly mediated through screens. The challenge for the organisers is not merely technical but emotional: to create a sense of unity without proximity. If they succeed, it will offer a lesson beyond sport, showing how large, diverse societies might preserve common feeling even as they stretch across space and difference.
There is also a quieter symbolism in the meticulous preparation, the nine-hour rehearsals, the thousands of costumes, the insistence on getting details right. At a time when much of public life feels rushed, improvisational and disposable, the Olympics still demand patience and craft. Ceremonies are not assembled overnight; they are rehearsed, corrected and refined. This insistence on process has political resonance. It suggests that meaning is not produced instantly, and that institutions, whether cultural or civic, require sustained investment to earn legitimacy. For India, watching these preparations from afar, there is an implicit contrast. We often speak of ambition without building the scaffolding that ambition needs. The Olympics remind us that grandeur without groundwork is hollow, and that even fleeting moments of beauty rest on long, unglamorous discipline.
When the lights finally come on at San Siro and the world tunes in, the audience will see a polished performance, not the months of rehearsal that made it possible. That is as it should be; rituals are meant to conceal their labour and reveal their meaning. Yet it is worth remembering what lies beneath the spectacle. An opening ceremony is not just entertainment. It is a mirror a nation holds up to itself and to others, reflecting what it believes worth celebrating. In choosing harmony, participation and craft, the Milan–Cortina Games are making a claim about the kind of global moment they wish to inhabit. Whether the world is ready to receive that message is uncertain. But the act of sending it, patiently rehearsed by volunteers in a tent outside a football stadium, is itself an assertion that shared values, however fragile, are still worth staging.
