ROME:

The flame for the 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics arrived in Rome on Thursday for a two-month torch relay around Italy before the sprawling Games open on February 6.

The flame arrived at Rome's Fiumicino airport at around 1700 local time (1600 GMT) after it was handed to the host city organisers in an earlier ceremony at the Panathenaic Stadium in Athens, where the first modern Olympics were revived in 1896.

It was carried off the airplane at 1725 local time (1625 GMT) by Italian tennis player Jasmine Paolini, doubles champion at last year's Summer Olympics in Paris, and president of the Milan-Cortina organising committee Giovanni Malago.

The flame was then presented to the President of Italy, Sergio Mattarella, at his official residence the Quirinal Palace, where it will spen

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