Milan (Italy) (AFP) - The Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics officially start with a star-studded opening ceremony at the San Siro Stadium on Friday, while US ski great Lindsey Vonn tests her injured knee in a crucial practice run.

The most geographically dispersed Games in history will get underway in Italy’s economic capital at 1900 GMT with a three-hour extravaganza that takes in the three other sites spread across the Alps and the Dolomites.

For the first time the 2,900 athletes will parade in the venues closest to where they will compete, in a bid to minimise travel.

The ceremony is expected to draw a global audience of hundreds of millions and offers “a unique platform to convey positive messages, not divisive ones,” creative director Marco Balich promised.

Balich intends to pay tribute to Italian design and fashion, with a special nod to the designer Giorgio Armani, who died last year.

American singer Mariah Carey, Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli and Chinese pianist Lang Lang are to perform.

Dozens of dignitaries will attend, including US Vice President JD Vance and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Vance will hold talks with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni before the ceremony.

Vance met International Olympic Committee president Kirsty Coventry, who is overseeing her first Games since her election last year, at a dinner for heads of state on Thursday.

The United States hosts the next Olympics, the 2028 Summer Games, in Los Angeles.

One of the most prominent US athletes, reigning Olympic snowboard champion Chloe Kim, took apparent aim at President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown as she arrived in Italy.

Kim said in an Instagram post she was proud to represent a country that is “strongest when it embraces diversity, dignity, and hope”.

“My parents left South Korea in search of a better future for their family. They left behind everything they knew so that my sisters and I could have the chance to one day live the American dream,” she added.

- Vonn’s crucial test -

The biggest star of the Olympics, American skier Lindsey Vonn, will on Friday get a chance to test her injured knee in training for the women’s downhill in Cortina.

Vonn’s Olympic comeback at the age of 41 was almost derailed after she ruptured an anterior cruciate ligament in a race last week, but she insists she can still compete and challenge for medals.

All skiers must complete at least one training run to qualify for Sunday’s final.

The Olympic flame reached Milan on Thursday but organisers have tried to keep the identity of the final two torchbearers for the opening ceremony under wraps.

They will simultaneously light two cauldrons inspired by Leonardo da Vinci’s geometric knot patterns, one suspended under Milan’s Arch of Peace, and the other in Piazza Dibona in Cortina.

It has been reported that the torchbearers will be Alberto Tomba in Milan and Deborah Compagnoni in Cortina, two of Italy’s most decorated alpine skiers.

The sports programme has already begun, with curling, snowboarding, ice hockey and figure skating underway.

Defending champions the United States took an early lead in the figure skating team event thanks to world champion ice dancers Madison Chock and Evan Bates.