Perhaps the lighting of the Olympic cauldrons on Friday (for the first time in Olympic history, there will be two of them: one in Milan, the other in Cortina) will manage to liven up the atmosphere a bit. So far, these Winter Games – strongly championed by the Lega party – have been met with more annoyance than enthusiasm in the territories hosting them. 

The government’s management has resulted in sky-high ticket prices, security “red zones,” closed schools, students forced back into remote learning, unfinished construction projects, cost overruns, preventive censorship of artists, and overcrowded transport. 

To please the Lega Governors of Lombardy and Veneto, Attilio Fontana and Luca Zaia, the Games will take place in eight different venues spread over hundreds of kilometers – a setup the New York Times has called a “logistical nightmare.” This is a blow to the image of Milan in particular, which the same newspaper had described as “the place to be” 10 years ago, at the time of Expo 2015. Nowadays, for many people, it’s a city to flee from. Over ten years, 40% of inhabitants have left Milan, replaced in turn by wealthier residents.

While the international press is not sparing its criticism of the organization of these Games (from Germany’s Bild, which wrote about the construction delays, to France’s Le Monde, which ran the headline “The hegemony of artificial snow” on its front page), one gets a very different........

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