The head of the International Olympic Committee has warned spectators to be on their best behavior when American athletes and dignitaries are introduced at Friday’s opening ceremony.
“I hope that the opening ceremony is seen by everyone as an opportunity to be respectful of each other,” IOC President Kirsty Coventry told reporters Wednesday when asked about the possibility of jeering.
Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio are leading the American delegation to the opening ceremony of the Games, which will begin at 2 p.m. ET, with the bulk of the festivities taking place in Milan’s famous San Siro soccer stadium.
The Games are getting underway amid the backdrop of European consternation over President Trump’s designs on Greenland, as well as worldwide controversy over the killings of two anti-immigration enforcement protesters in Minneapolis last month.
The Department of Homeland Security has confirmed that members of Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) will be in Milan to help provide security for the Games.
That set off Milan Mayor Giuseppe Sala, a member of the left-wing European Green Party, who decried ICE as a “militia that kills” in a local radio interview Jan. 27.
“It’s a militia that signs its own permits to enter people’s house, like we signed our own permission slips at school, except it’s much more serious,” the mayor said. “They’re not welcome in Milan. Can’t we just say ‘no’ to Trump for once?”
In a bid to quell local outrage, US Ambassador to Italy Tilman Fertita reassured the Italian government the agents will largely work out of a single room in the American consulate, where they will “mostly consult their own databases,” according to a statement issued by the Interior Ministry the same day as Sala’s outburst.
The Milan Cortina Olympics will be the first presided over by Coventry, a seven-time medalist in swimming representing Zimbabwe who replaced Thomas Bach as IOC boss last year.
Coventry, 42, has yet to meet Trump, 79, ahead of the 2028 Summer Games, which will be hosted by Los Angeles.