MILAN—Casting a mournful pall over the procession making its way through the foothills and dusty roads of northern Italy, thousands of wailing, black-shawl-clad Italian women were seen following the Olympic torch this week in the run-up to the 2026 Winter Games. The women, wearing dark head coverings and clutching religious icons that bore the image of St. Catherine of Siena, reportedly sobbed and stayed close to the torchbearers and NBC camera crew throughout the final leg of the 7,500-mile relay, which ends Friday with the lighting of the Olympic cauldron at Milan’s San Siro stadium. Beating their breasts and occasionally dropping to their knees and crying out to the Blessed Mother for strength, these disconsolate women were said to be accompanied by an assemblage of village musicians playing cornets and cymbals, a group of barefoot children in string ties who led a garlanded ox through the winding valleys of Lombardy, and Olympic greats such as Kristi Yamaguchi and Shaun White. At press time, sources confirmed the procession had abruptly broken up after torchbearer and Italian television personality Gianluca Torre was shot and killed by Salvatore, the impulsive, hot-blooded eldest son of the Fontana clan.
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