The debut, “welcome to the Olympic stadium”, betrayed the understandable emotion of the live TV start of a highly anticipated event, the Rai live broadcast on the inauguration ceremony of the Milan Cortina 2026 Olympics. A grandiose show, seen on TV by over 9 million people which brought Rai 1 a 46.2% share. But the continuation of the hosting made many of the athletes and artists who took part in the event turn up their noses, triggering a real uproar over the exceptional commentator, the director of Rai Sport Paolo Petrecca who, in the running, took the place of Auro Bulbarelli, who was released from hosting a few days ago after having mistakenly revealed “a sensational surprise” regarding the opening ceremony involving the President of the Republic.
Petrecca was supported by the writer Fabio Genovesi and the Olympic champion Stefania Belmondo, but it was not enough to avoid some shortcomings in the management which ended up in the sights of the media, observers, social media and the opposition which is now calling for the director’s resignation. Some avoided controversy, others, like the actress Matilda De Angelis, mistaken for Mariah Carey, took it with irony (“Call me Mariah”, she joked on social media saying she was ready to also share the rights to ‘All I want for Christmas’ with the star), or like the captain of the men’s national volleyball team Simone Giannelli, who commented with fair play on the fact that only one of the six athletes in the delegation had been recognised, and belatedly. “Only Paola Egonu is famous. But let’s not get angry… it was fantastic anyway.”
Alessandra Marzari, the president of Vero Volley, the team in which Anna Danesi and Paola Egonu play, took it less well and asked for “formal apologies from Rai and the director of RaiSport, who hosted the evening, for not having recognized the athletes of the national team Carlotta Cambi and our Anna Danesi, Olympic and world gold medalist, as well as captain of Itali”.
Ghali’s comment was cold, as his participation in the event had already been preceded by controversy: ‘Peace? Harmony? Humanity? I didn’t hear any of this last night, he comments. His name was not even mentioned to introduce his performance. “And it’s the moment when we talk about the Olympic spirit and peace”, Petrecca limited himself to saying as he introduced his performance: a rhythmic recitation of the first verses of Promemoria, the poem by Gianni Rodari which speaks of peace, solidarity and respect. ‘A performance with a cast entirely made up of dancers under 20’, limits himself to explaining Petrecca, who instead focuses on Rodari: ‘One of the greatest narrative voices in Italian literature to talk about peace in music and with dance. ‘A catastrophe,’ is the judgment without appeal of the journalist and polemicist Selvaggia Lucarelli, who is nominating the director of RaiSport for the ‘first Olympic medal for the most disastrous commentary in the history of the Olympics’ by lining up other ‘papers of the commentary: the confusion made between Mattarella’s daughter and the president of the International Olympic Committee, Kirsty Coventry, the parade of Macedonian athletes (‘it is called this because like the fruit parade it is made up of people different) or the Brazilians who ‘have rhythm in their blood or even the homage to Margherita Hack, ‘the first great popularizer, because science is nothing if it doesn’t reach us.
The Usigradi executive protests to the CoR
‘Petrecca and the company’s top management are responsible for Raì’s disgrace, protests the Usigrai executive with the CdR and the Milan trustee of RaiSport, who ask the director to ‘show his face, all the way through.’ He speaks of an ’embarrassing performance by TeleMelonì and of an ‘Olympic fool’ for the M5s; the Democratic Party is calling for the director’s head: ‘Already disheartened twice by his editorial staff, he must resign due to arrogance and blatant professional incompetence’. Dem deputy and former Italvolley coach Mauro Berruto attacks by ironically quoting Rodari’s verses: ‘There are things to do every day: read, study, inform yourself, get rid of ignorance. Avs is outraged by the double censorship of Ghali: the preventive one, ‘deciding what he would have said and what he could not have said’ and the one during the evening. Rai councilor Roberto Natale denounces how the editorial staff’s doubts about the choice were ignored, ‘just as the professional reasons for which I had judged Petrecca’s choice for the direction of Rai Sport to be totally wrong, and not alone, were ignored in the Board of Directors’.