Serena Scarpello pushed her sleeping 2-month-old baby, Edwardo, into the crowds at Parco Ravizza in Milan on Thursday evening.
When Fraser Bullock, executive chair and president of Utah’s 2034 Winter Games, noticed the Italian mother, he leaned down so she could snap a photograph with her baby and the Olympic torch that Bullock was about to carry through Milan’s Porta Romana-Bocconi neighborhood.
Scarpello wanted her son to have a connection to the flame. “He is the next generation” of Olympians, she said.
Hundreds of thousands of Italians like Scarpello gathered in locations across Milan this week to glimpse the Olympic flame as it made its way across the country,
In Parco Ravizza where Bullock carried the flame, school children and Bocconi University students converged upon the area — not knowing who was participating in that leg of the torch run or why — but still longing to be near the flame and drawn to the unity the flame carries.
Noticing a USA jacket worn by another spectator, university students looked at one another and then questioned, “Should we give him a shout?” Then, before anyone could answer, the group loudly cheered, “Go Team USA!”
Bullock called the experience magical.
“This is what we want,” he said, “a younger generation to feel the power of the Olympics through the flame.”
Still, the strong sense of unity and the powerful connection of those in the crowd cause me a moment of pause.
Hours earlier, I had learned the iconic Washington Post had cut one-third of its staff. This followed news that Democrats in Washington would seek to interview President Donald Trump as part of the Jeffrey Epstein investigation and as the Department of Homeland Security withdrew 700 personnel from Minnesota — where immigration tensions have been brewing since the fatal shooting of Renee Good on Jan. 7.
And I could not forget the emotional video posted on social media by “Today” anchor Savannah Guthrie, pleading for the return of her missing mother after an apparent abduction.
The world is in chaos. Wars rage in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, in Africa and Asia, and in South America. Polarization, contention and political positioning reign. And mass shootings and religiously targeted attacks are commonplace.
Yet, in one moment, I watched children hold up colorful signs to support strangers, and adults cheer for a man they didn’t know simply because he was carrying the Olympic flame.
What I was witnessing was a modern day “ekecheiria” or “Olympic Truce.” The concept dates back to ninth Century B.C. ancient Greece and, when translated, means the “holding of hands.”
At its inception, the Olympic Truce allowed safe participation in the ancient Olympic Games for all athletes and spectators.
In Olympic cities, ekecheiria is commonplace.
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox met Friday morning with Italian and French leaders, a first-ever cooperation between three Winter Games host regions.
While no one in the meeting is leading a country, each are in a position to influence a movement.
Whatever is happening in the world, “we can unify at this level,” said Cox. “We want to set that example as representatives of the United States, as representatives of the state of Utah. You are our allies and you are our friends and have been for many, many years,” he said.
For me, Cox’s comments — shared as the U.S. and Europe continue to wrangle over tariffs and Greenland — are the modern-day example of an Olympic Truce.
“No matter what’s happening at the top level, down here we’re working together,” he said. “Let’s work and see what we have in common and how we can learn from each other. And that’s the best part, that intellectual humility.”
The governor’s comments came hours after Utah businesswoman and philanthropist Gail Miller embraced crowds as she carried the Olympic torch through Milan’s CityLife Shopping District, an open-air downtown shopping center.
In a moment very similar to Bullock’s torch run, Miller said she felt the spectators’ excitement for the opportunity to be a part of something bigger than themselves. “Even if they are not an athlete, they can be part of it by being here, by watching and cheering, by participating.”
Children pushed through the crowd to be closer to the action. “Those kids didn’t know who I was, but they wanted a picture with the Olympic torch,” Miller said. “The torch is the important part. It is the flame that it carries. Everybody that carries it leaves a little bit of themselves in that flame, and when it is put together on the caldron we are all burning brightly with it.”
Those watching the events are also part of that flame, she said.
Friday evening, that flame will make its way into Milan’s San Siro Stadium — marking the official start of the Games here.
Italian Olympic organizers hope to multiply the spirit of the flame by lighting two cauldrons during the Opening Ceremony — one at Milan’s iconic landmark Arco della Pace and a second at the Piazza Dibona, the center of mountain town of Cortina d’Ampezzo.
They say the double cauldrons — the blending of Cortina’s quiet mountain landscapes with Milan’s global hub of fashion and culture — are a powerful symbol of unity amid differences. The official Milan Cortina website simply calls it “a shared embrace.”
The IOC is hoping this Olympic Truce will extend beyond the period of the Olympic Games. They have implemented of a series of “sport for peace” activities through the National Olympic Committees.
Bullock also hopes the light of the Olympic flame will linger long after the Games have ended.
After his leg of the torch run, Bullock again said the unity of the Olympics is hard to quantify. “Wow! Talk about the world coming together. We are one. We are unified. And we have hope for the future.”
Maybe that’s why we all want to see or touch or be changed by the warmth the Olympic flame — a powerful symbol that can erase differences and build unity.
Maybe that’s because, as the flame is passed from torch bearer to torch bearer, as Miller says, it takes a little of the observer with it.
Then, centuries later, even in dark and chaotic times, the light of ekecheiria continues to burn.
