title: Milan

text: During the post-war economic boom, the reconstruction effort and the so-called Italian economic miracle attracted a large wave of internal migration (especially from rural areas of southern Italy) to Milan. The population grew from 1.3 million in 1951 to 1.7 million in 1967. During this period, Milan was rapidly rebuilt, with the construction of several innovative and modernist skyscrapers, such as the Torre Velasca and the Pirelli Tower, that soon became the symbols of this new era of prosperity. The economic prosperity was, however, overshadowed in the late 1960s and early 1970s during the so-called Years of Lead, when Milan witnessed an unprecedented wave of street violence, labour strikes and political terrorism. The apex of this period of turmoil occurred on 12 December 1969, when a bomb exploded at the National Agrarian Bank in Piazza Fontana, killing 17 people and injuring 88.


title: Milan

text: In the 1980s, with the international success of Milanese houses (like Armani, Prada, Versace, Moschino and Dolce & Gabbana), Milan became one of the world's fashion capitals. The city saw also a marked rise in international tourism, notably from America and Japan, while the stock exchange increased its market capitalisation more than five-fold. This period led the mass media to nickname the metropolis ""Milano da bere"", literally "Milan to be drunk". However, in the 1990s, Milan was badly affected by Tangentopoli, a political scandal in which many politicians and businessmen were tried for corruption. The city was also affected by a severe financial crisis and a steady decline in textiles, automobile and steel production. Berlusconi's Milano 2 and Milano 3 projects were the most important housing projects of the 1980s and 1990s in Milan and brought to the city new economical and social energy.


title: Milan

text: In the early 21st century, Milan underwent a series of sweeping redevelopments over huge former industrial areas. Two new business districts, Porta Nuova and CityLife, were built in the space of a decade, radically changing the skyline of the city. Its exhibition centre moved to a much larger site in Rho. The long decline in traditional manufacturing has been overshadowed by a great expansion of publishing, finance, banking, fashion design, information technology, logistics and tourism. The city's decades-long population decline seems to have partially reverted in recent years, as the gained about 100,000 new residents since the last census. The successful re-branding of the city as a global capital of innovation has been instrumental in its successful bids for hosting large international events such as 2015 Expo and 2026 Winter Olympics.


title: Milan

text: Milan is located in the north-western section of the Po Valley, approximately halfway between the river Po to the south and the foothills of the Alps with the great lakes (Lake Como, Lake Maggiore, Lake Lugano) to the north, the Ticino river to the west and the Adda to the east. The city's land is flat, the highest point being at above sea level.


title: Milan

text: The administrative covers an area of about , with a population, in 2013, of 1,324,169 and a population density of . The Metropolitan City of Milan covers and in 2015 had a population estimated at 3,196,825, with a resulting density of . A larger urban area, comprising parts of the provinces of Milan, Monza e Brianza, Como, Lecco and Varese is wide and has a population of 5,270,000 with a density of .


title: Milan

text: The concentric layout of the city centre reflects the "Navigli", an ancient system of navigable and interconnected canals, now mostly covered. The suburbs of the city have expanded mainly to the north, swallowing up many along the roads towards Varese, Como, Lecco and Bergamo.


title: Milan

text: Milan features a mid-latitude, four-season humid subtropical climate ("Cfa"), according to the Köppen climate classification. Milan's climate is similar to much of Northern Italy's inland plains, with hot, humid summers and cold, foggy winters. The Alps and Apennine Mountains form a natural barrier that protects the city from the major circulations coming from northern Europe and the sea.


title: Milan

text: During winter, daily average temperatures can fall below freezing () and accumulations of snow can occur: the historic average of Milan's area is in the period between 1961 and 1990, with a record of in January 1985. In the suburbs the average can reach . The city receives on average seven days of snow per year.


title: Milan

text: The city was often shrouded in thick cloud or fog during winter, although the removal of rice paddies from the southern neighbourhoods and the urban heat island effect have greatly reduced this occurrence since the turn of the 21st century. Occasionally, the Foehn winds cause the temperatures to rise unexpectedly: on 22 January 2012 the daily high reached while on 22 February 2012 it reached . Air pollution levels rise significantly in wintertime when cold air clings to the soil, causing Milan to be one of Europe's most polluted cities.


title: Milan

text: Summers in Milan are hot and humidity levels are high with peak temperatures reaching above . Due to the high humidity, urban heat effect and lack of wind, nighttimes often remain muggy during the summer months. Usually the summer enjoys clearer skies with an average of more than 13 hours of daylight: when precipitation occurs though, it is more likely to be accompanied by thunderstorms and hail. Springs and autumns are generally pleasant, with temperatures ranging between ; these seasons are characterized by higher rainfall, especially in April and May. Relative humidity typically ranges between 45% (comfortable) and 95% (very humid) throughout the year, rarely dropping below 27% (dry) and reaching as high as 100%. Wind is generally absent: over the course of the year typical wind speeds vary from (calm to gentle breeze), rarely exceeding (fresh breeze), except during summer thunderstorms when winds can blow strong. In the spring, gale-force windstorms may happen, generated either by Tramontane blowing from the Alps or by Bora-like winds from the north. Due to its geographic location surrounded by mountains on 3 sides, Milan is among the least windy cities in Europe.


title: Milan

text: The legislative body of the Italian is the City Council ("Consiglio Comunale"), which in cities with more than one million population is composed by 48 councillors elected every five years with a proportional system, at the same time of the mayoral elections. The executive body is the City Committee ("Giunta Comunale"), composed by 12 assessors, that is nominated and presided over by a directly elected Mayor. The current mayor of Milan is Giuseppe Sala, an independent leading a centre-left alliance led by the Democratic Party.


title: Milan

text: The municipality of Milan is subdivided into nine administrative Borough Councils ("Consigli di Municipio"), down from the former twenty districts before the 1999 administrative reform. Each Borough Council is governed by a Council ("Consiglio") and a President, elected contextually to the city Mayor. The urban organisation is governed by the Italian Constitution (art. 114), the Municipal Statute and several laws, notably the Legislative Decree 267/2000 or Unified Text on Local Administration ("Testo Unico degli Enti Locali"). After the 2016 administrative reform, the Borough Councils have the power to advise the Mayor with nonbinding opinions on a large spectrum of topics and are responsible for running most local services, such as schools, social services, waste collection, roads, parks, libraries and local commerce; in addition they are supplied with an autonomous funding in order to finance local activities.


title: Milan

text: Milan is the capital of the eponymous Metropolitan city. According to the last governmental dispositions concerning administrative reorganisation, the urban area of Milan is one of the 15 Metropolitan municipalities ("città metropolitane"), new administrative bodies fully operative since 1 January 2015. The new Metro municipalities, giving large urban areas the administrative powers of a province, are conceived for improving the performance of local administrations and to slash local spending by better co-ordinating the municipalities in providing basic services (including transport, school and social programs) and environment protection. In this policy framework, the Mayor of Milan is designated to exercise the functions of Metropolitan mayor ("Sindaco metropolitano"), presiding over a Metropolitan Council formed by 24 mayors of municipalities within the Metro municipality. The Metropolitan City of Milan is headed by the Metropolitan Mayor ("Sindaco metropolitano") and by the Metropolitan Council ("Consiglio metropolitano"). Since 21 June 2016 Giuseppe Sala, as mayor of the capital city, has been the mayor of the Metropolitan City.


title: Milan

text: Milan is also the capital of Lombardy, one of the twenty regions of Italy. Lombardy is by far the most populated region of Italy, with more than ten million inhabitants, almost one sixth of the national total. It is governed by a Regional Council, composed of 80 members elected for a five-year term. On 26 March 2018, a list of candidates of the Centre-right coalition, a coalition of centrist and right-wing parties, led by Attilio Fontana, largely won the regional election, defeating a coalition of socialists, liberals and ecologists and a third-party candidate from the populist Five Stars Movement. The conservatives have governed the region almost uninterruptedly since 1970. The regional council has 48 members from the centre-right coalition, 18 from the Centre-left coalition and 13 from the Five Star Movement. The seat of the regional government is Palazzo Lombardia that, standing at , is the fifth-tallest building in Milan.


title: Milan

text: Two business districts dominate Milan's skyline: "Porta Nuova" in the north-east (boroughs n° 9 and 2) and "CityLife" (borough n° 8) in the north-west part of the commune. The tallest buildings include the Unicredit Tower at 231 m (though only 162 m without the spire), and the 209 m Allianz Tower, a 50-story tower.


title: Milan

text: There are only few remains of the ancient Roman colony, notably the well-preserved Colonne di San Lorenzo. During the second half of the 4th century, Saint Ambrose, as bishop of Milan, had a strong influence on the layout of the city, reshaping the centre (although the cathedral and baptistery built in Roman times are now lost) and building the great basilicas at the city gates: Sant'Ambrogio, San Nazaro in Brolo, San Simpliciano and Sant'Eustorgio, which still stand, refurbished over the centuries, as some of the finest and most important churches in Milan. Milan's Cathedral, built between 1386 and 1877, is the fifth-largest cathedral in the world and the most important example of Gothic architecture in Italy. The gilt bronze statue of the Virgin Mary, placed in 1774 on the highest pinnacle of the Duomo, soon became one of the most enduring symbols of Milan.


title: Milan

text: In the 15th century, when the Sforza ruled the city, an old Viscontean fortress was enlarged and embellished to become the Castello Sforzesco, the seat of an elegant Renaissance court surrounded by a walled hunting park. Notable architects involved in the project included the Florentine Filarete, who was commissioned to build the high central entrance tower, and the military specialist Bartolomeo Gadio. The alliance between Francesco Sforza and Florence's Cosimo de' Medici bore to Milan Tuscan models of Renaissance architecture, apparent in the Ospedale Maggiore and Bramante's work in the city, which includes Santa Maria presso San Satiro (a reconstruction of a small 9th-century church), the tribune of Santa Maria delle Grazie and three cloisters for Sant'Ambrogio. The Counter-Reformation in the 16th to 17th centuries was also the period of Spanish domination and was marked by two powerful figures: Saint Charles Borromeo and his cousin, Cardinal Federico Borromeo. Not only did they impose themselves as moral guides to the people of Milan, but they also gave a great impulse to culture, with the creation of the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, in a building designed by Francesco Maria Richini, and the nearby Pinacoteca Ambrosiana. Many notable churches and Baroque mansions were built in the city during this period by the architects, Pellegrino Tibaldi, Galeazzo Alessi and Richini himself.


title: Milan

text: Empress Maria Theresa of Austria was responsible for the significant renovations carried out in Milan during the 18th century. This urban and artistic renewal included the establishment of Teatro alla Scala, inaugurated in 1778, and the renovation of the Royal Palace. The late 1700s Palazzo Belgioioso by Giuseppe Piermarini and Royal Villa of Milan by Leopoldo Pollack, later the official residence of Austrian viceroys, are often regarded among the best examples of Neoclassical architecture in Lombardy. The Napoleonic rule of the city in 1805–1814, having established Milan as the capital of a satellite Kingdom of Italy, took steps in order to reshape it accordingly to its new status, with the construction of large boulevards, new squares (Porta Ticinese by Luigi Cagnola and Foro Bonaparte by Giovanni Antonio Antolini) and cultural institutions (Art Gallery and the Academy of Fine Arts). The massive Arch of Peace, situated at the bottom of Corso Sempione, is often compared to the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. In the second half of the 19th century, Milan quickly became the main industrial centre of the new Italian nation, drawing inspiration from the great European capitals that were hubs of the Second Industrial Revolution. The great Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, realised by Giuseppe Mengoni between 1865 and 1877 to celebrate Vittorio Emanuele II, is a covered passage with a glass and cast iron roof, inspired by the Burlington Arcade in London. Several other arcades such as the Galleria del Corso, built between 1923 and 1931, complement it. Another late-19th-century eclectic monument in the city is the Cimitero Monumentale graveyard, built in a Neo-Romanesque style between 1863 and 1866.


title: Milan

text: The tumultuous period of early 20th century brought several, radical innovations in Milanese architecture. Art Nouveau, also known as "Liberty" in Italy, is recognisable in Palazzo Castiglioni, built by architect Giuseppe Sommaruga between 1901 and 1903. Other examples include Hotel Corso, Casa Guazzoni with its wrought iron and staircase, and Berri-Meregalli house, the latter built in a traditional Milanese Art Nouveau style combined with elements of neo-Romanesque and Gothic revival architecture, regarded as one of the last such types of architecture in the city. A new, more eclectic form of architecture can be seen in buildings such as Castello Cova, built the 1910s in a distinctly neo-medieval style, evoking the architectural trends of the past. An important example of Art Deco, which blended such styles with Fascist architecture, is the huge Central railway station inaugurated in 1931.


title: Milan

text: The post–World War II period saw rapid reconstruction and fast economic growth, accompanied by a nearly two-fold increase in population. In the 1950s and 1960s, a strong demand for new residential and commercial areas drove to extreme urban expansion, that has produced some of the major milestones in the city's architectural history, including Gio Ponti's Pirelli Tower (1956–60), Velasca Tower (1956–58), and the creation of brand new residential satellite towns, as well as huge amounts of low quality public housings. In recent years, de-industrialization, urban decay and gentrification led to a vast urban renewal of former industrial areas, that have been transformed into modern residential and financial districts, notably Porta Nuova in downtown Milan and FieraMilano in the suburb of Rho. In addition, the old exhibition area is being completely reshaped according to the Citylife regeneration project, featuring residencial areas, museums, an urban park and three skyscrapers designed by international architects, and after whom they are named: the Isozaki Arata—when completed, the tallest building in Italy, the twisted Hadid Tower, and the curved Libeskind Tower.


title: Milan

text: The largest parks in the central area of Milan are Sempione Park, at the north-western edge, and Montanelli Gardens, situated northeast of the city. English-style Sempione Park, built in 1890, contains a Napoleonic Arena, the Milan City Aquarium, a steel lattice panoramic tower, an art exhibition centre, a Japanese garden and a public library. The Montanelli gardens, created in the 18th century, hosts the Natural History Museum of Milan and a planetarium. Slightly away from the city centre, heading east, Forlanini Park is characterised by a large pond and a few preserved shacks which remind of the area's agricultural past. In recent years Milan's authorities pledged to develop its green areas: they planned to create twenty new urban parks and extend the already existing ones, and announced plans to plant three million trees by 2030.


title: Milan

text: In addition, even though Milan is located in one of the most urbanised regions of Italy, it is surrounded by a belt of green areas and features numerous gardens even in its very centre. Since 1990, the farmlands and woodlands north (Parco Nord Milano) and south (Parco Agricolo Sud Milano) of the urban area have been protected as regional parks. West of the city, the Parco delle Cave (Sand pit park) has been established on a neglected site where gravel and sand used to be extracted, featuring artificial lakes and woods.


title: Milan

text: The official estimated population of the City of Milan was 1,378,689 as of 31 December 2018, according to ISTAT, the official Italian statistical agency, up by 136,556 from the 2011 census, or a growth of about 11%. At the same date 3,250,315 people lived in Milan province-level municipality. The population of Milan today is lower than its historical peak. With rapid industrialization in post-war years, the population of Milan peaked at 1,743,427 in 1973. Thereafter, during the following decades, about one third of the population moved to the outer belt of suburbs and new satellite settlements that grew around the city proper.


title: Milan

text: Milan is home to the second largest Far East Asian community in Europe after Paris, with Philippines and China making up about a quarter of its foreign population (circa 73.000 of 277.000, in 2021). Another 3,500 foreigners come from other East Asian countries.


title: Milan

text: Today, Milan's conurbation extends well beyond the borders of the city proper and of its special-status provincial authority: its contiguous built-up urban area was home to 5,270,000 people in 2015, while its wider metropolitan area, the largest in Italy and fourth largest in the EU, is estimated to have a population of more than 8.2 million.


title: Milan

text: As of 2021, some 276,776 foreign residents lived in the municipality of Milan, representing 20.1% of the total resident population. These figures suggest that the immigrant population has more than doubled in the last 15 years.


title: Milan

text: After World War II, Milan experienced two main waves of immigration: the first, dating from the 1950s to the early 1970s, saw a large influx of migrants from poorer and rural areas within Italy; the second, starting from the late 1980s, has been characterized by the preponderance of foreign-born immigrants.


title: Milan

text: The early period coincided with the so-called Italian economic miracle of postwar years, an era of extraordinary growth based on rapid industrial expansion and great public works, that brought to the city a large influx of over 400,000 people, mainly from rural and underdeveloped Southern Italy. In the last three decades, the foreign born share of the population soared. Immigrants came mainly from Africa (in particular Eritreans, Egyptians, Moroccans, Senegalese, and Nigerian), and the former socialist countries of Eastern Europe (notably Albanians, Romanians, Ukrainians, Macedonians, Moldovans, and Russians), in addition to a growing number of Asians (in particular Chinese, Sri Lankans and Filipinos) and Latin Americans (Mainly South Americans). At the beginning of the 1990s, Milan already had a population of foreign-born residents of approximately 58,000 (or 4% of the then population), that rose rapidly to over 117,000 by the end of the decade (about 9% of the total).


title: Milan

text: Decades of continuing high immigration have made the city the most cosmopolitan and multicultural in Italy. Milan notably hosts the oldest and largest Chinese community in Italy, with almost 34,000 people in 2021. Situated in the 9th district, and centred on Via Paolo Sarpi, an important commercial avenue, the Milanese Chinatown was originally established in the 1920s by immigrants from Wencheng County, in the Zhejiang province, and used to operate small textile and leather workshops.


title: Milan

text: Milan has also a substantial English-speaking community (more than 4,000 American, British, Irish and Australian expatriates), and several English schools and language publications, such as Hello Milano, Where Milano and Easy Milano.


title: Milan

text: Milan's population, like that of Italy as a whole, is mostly Catholic. It is the seat of the Archdiocese of Milan. Greater Milan is also home to Protestant, Eastern Orthodox, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Sikh and Buddhist communities.


title: Milan

text: Milan has been a Christian-majority city since the late Roman Empire. Its religious history was marked by the figure of St. Ambrose, whose heritage includes the Ambrosian Rite (Italian: "Rito ambrosiano"), used by some five million Catholics in the greater part of the Archdiocese of Milan, which consider the largest in Europe. The Rite varies slightly from the canonical Roman Rite liturgy, with differences in the mass, liturgical year (Lent starts four days later than in the Roman Rite), baptism, rite of funerals, priest clothes, and sacred music (use of the Ambrosian chant rather than Gregorian).


title: Milan

text: In addition, the city is home to the largest Orthodox community in Italy. Lombardy is the seat of at least 78 Orthodox parishes and monasteries, the vast majority of them located in the area of Milan. The main Romanian Orthodox church in Milan is the Catholic church of Our Lady of Victory (Chiesa di Santa Maria della Vittoria), currently granted for use to the local Romanian community. Similarly, the point of reference for the followers of the Russian Orthodox Church is the Catholic church of San Vito in Pasquirolo.


title: Milan

text: The Jewish community of Milan is the second largest in Italy after Rome, with about 10,000 members, mainly Sephardi. The main city synagogue, Hechal David u-Mordechai Temple, was built by architect Luca Beltrami in 1892.


title: Milan

text: Milan hosts also one of the largest Muslim communities in Italy, and the city saw the construction of the country's first new mosque featuring a dome and minaret, since the destruction of the ancient mosques of Lucera in the year 1300. In 2014 the City Council agreed on the construction of a new mosque amid bitter political debate, since it is strenuously opposed by right-wing parties such as the Northern League.


title: Milan

text: Currently, accurate statistics on the Hindu and Sikh presence in Milan metro area are not available; however, various sources estimate that about 40% of the total Indian population living in Italy, or about 50,000 individuals, reside in Lombardy, where a number of Hindu and Sikh temples exist and where they form the largest such communities in Europe after the ones in Britain.


title: Milan

text: Whereas Rome is Italy's political capital, Milan is the country's industrial and financial heart. With a 2021 GDP estimated at €207.4 billion, the province of Milan generates approximately 10% of the national GDP; while the economy of the Lombardy region generates approximately 19.5% of Italy's GDP (or an estimated €400 billion in 2021, roughly the size of Belgium). The province of Milan is home to about 45% of businesses in the Lombardy region and more than 8 percent of all businesses in Italy, including three Fortune 500 companies.


title: Milan

text: According to the Economist Intelligence Unit, Milan was the 11th most expensive city in Europe and the 22nd most expensive city in the world in 2019, while the well-known Via Monte Napoleone is Europe's most expensive shopping street according to Global Blue.


title: Milan

text: Since the late 1800s, the area of Milan has been a major industrial and manufacturing centre. Alfa Romeo automobile company and Falck steel group employed thousands of workers in the city until the closure of their sites in Arese in 2004 and Sesto San Giovanni in 1995. Other global industrial companies, such as Edison, Prysmian Group, Riva Group, Saras, Saipem and Techint, maintain their headquarters and significant employment in the city and its suburbs. Other relevant industries active in metro Milan include chemicals (e.g. Mapei, Versalis, Tamoil Italy), home appliances (e.g. Candy), hospitality (UNA Hotels & Resorts), food & beverages (e.g. Bertolli, Campari), machinery, medical technologies (e.g. Amplifon, Bracco), plastics and textiles. The construction (e.g. Webuild), retail (e.g. Esselunga, La Rinascente) and utilities (e.g. A2A, Edison S.p.A., Snam, Sorgenia) sectors are also large employers in the Greater Milan.


title: Milan

text: Milan is Italy's largest financial hub. The main national insurance companies and banking groups (for a total of 198 companies) and over forty foreign insurance and banking companies are located in the city, as well as a number of asset management companies, including Anima SGR, Azimut Holding, ARCA SGR, and Eurizon Capital. The Associazione Bancaria Italiana representing the Italian banking system, and Milan Stock Exchange (225 companies listed on the stock exchange) are both located in the city. Porta Nuova, the main business district of Milan and one of the most important in Europe, hosts the Italian headquarters of numerous global companies, such as Accenture, AXA, Bank of America, BNP Paribas, Celgene, China Construction Bank, Finanza & Futuro Banca, FM Global, Herbalife, HSBC, KPMG, Maire Tecnimont, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Panasonic, Pirelli, Samsung, Ubisoft, Shire, Tata Consultancy Services, Telecom Italia, UniCredit, UnipolSai. Other large multinational service companies, such as Allianz, Generali, Alleanza Assicurazioni and PricewaterhouseCoopers, have their headquarters in the CityLife business district, a new development project designed by prominent modernist architects Zaha Hadid, Daniel Liebskind and Arata Isozaki.


title: Milan

text: The city is home to numerous media and advertising agencies, national newspapers and telecommunication companies, including both the public service broadcaster RAI and private television companies like Mediaset and Sky Italia. In addition, it hosts the headquarters of the largest Italian publishing companies, such as Feltrinelli, Mondadori, RCS Media Group, Messaggerie Italiane, and Giunti Editore. Milan has also seen a rapid increase in the presence of IT companies, with both domestic and international companies such as Altavista, Google, Italtel, Lycos, Microsoft, Virgilio and Yahoo! establishing their Italian operations in the city.


title: Milan

text: Milan is one of the fashion capitals of the world, where the sector can count on 12,000 companies, 800 show rooms, and 6,000 sales outlets; the city hosts the headquarters of global fashion houses such as Armani, Dolce & Gabbana, Luxottica, Prada, Versace, Valentino, Zegna and four weeks a year are dedicated to fashion events. The city is also a global hub for event management and trade fairs. FieraMilano operates the world's fourth largest exhibition hall in Rho, were international exhibitions like Milan Furniture Fair, EICMA, EMO take place on 400,000 square metres of exhibition areas with more than 4 million visitors in 2018.


title: Milan

text: Tourism is an increasingly important part of the city's economy: with 8.81 million registered international arrivals in 2018 (up 9.92% on the previous year), Milan ranked as the world's 15th-most visited city.


title: Milan

text: Milan is home to many cultural institutions, museums and art galleries, that account for about a tenth of the national total of visitors and receipts. The Pinacoteca di Brera is one of Milan's most important art galleries. It contains one of the foremost collections of Italian painting, including masterpieces such as the "Brera Madonna" by Piero della Francesca. The Castello Sforzesco hosts numerous art collections and exhibitions, especially statues, ancient arms and furnitures, as well as the Pinacoteca del Castello Sforzesco, with an art collection including Michelangelo's last sculpture, the "Rondanini Pietà", Andrea Mantegna's "Trivulzio Madonna" and Leonardo da Vinci's "Codex Trivulzianus" manuscript. The Castello complex also includes The Museum of Ancient Art, The Furniture Museum, The Museum of Musical Instruments and the Applied Arts Collection, The Egyptian and Prehistoric sections of the Archaeological Museum and the Achille Bertarelli Print Collection (Civica Raccolta delle Stampe Bertarelli).


title: Milan

text: Milan's figurative art flourished in the Middle Ages, and with the Visconti family being major patrons of the arts, the city became an important centre of Gothic art and architecture (Milan Cathedral being the city's most formidable work of Gothic architecture). Leonardo worked in Milan from 1482 until 1499. He was commissioned to paint the "Virgin of the Rocks" for the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception and "The Last Supper" for the monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie.


title: Milan

text: The city was affected by the Baroque in the 17th and 18th centuries, and hosted numerous formidable artists, architects and painters of that period, such as Caravaggio and Francesco Hayez, which several important works are hosted in Brera Academy. The Museum of Risorgimento is specialised on the history of Italian unification Its collections include iconic paintings like Baldassare Verazzi's "Episode from the Five Days" and Francesco Hayez's 1840 " of Emperor Ferdinand I of Austria". The Triennale is a design museum and events venue located in Palazzo dell'Arte, in Sempione Park. It hosts exhibitions and events highlighting contemporary Italian design, urban planning, architecture, music, and media arts, emphasising the relationship between art and industry.


title: Milan

text: Milan in the 20th century was the epicentre of the Futurist artistic movement. Filippo Marinetti, the founder of Italian Futurism wrote in his 1909 ""Manifesto of Futurism"" (in Italian, "Manifesto Futuristico"), that Milan was ""grande...tradizionale e futurista"" (""grand...traditional and futuristic"", in English). Umberto Boccioni was also an important Futurism artist who worked in the city. Today, Milan remains a major international hub of modern and contemporary art, with numerous modern art galleries. The Modern Art Gallery, situated in the Royal Villa, hosts collections of Italian and European painting from the 18th to the early 20th centuries. The Museo del Novecento, situated in the Palazzo dell'Arengario, is one of the most important art galleries in Italy about 20th-century art; of particular relevance are the sections dedicated to Futurism, Spatialism and Arte povera. In the early 1990s architect David Chipperfield was invited to convert the premises of the former Ansaldo Factory into a Museum. Museo delle Culture (MUDEC) opened in April 2015. The Gallerie di Piazza Scala, a modern and contemporary museum located in Piazza della Scala in the Palazzo Brentani and the Palazzo Anguissola, hosts 195 artworks from the collections of Fondazione Cariplo with a strong representation of nineteenth-century Lombard painters and sculptors, including Antonio Canova and Umberto Boccioni. A new section was opened in the Palazzo della Banca Commerciale Italiana in 2012. Other private ventures dedicated to contemporary art include the exhibiting spaces of the Prada Foundation and HangarBicocca. The Nicola Trussardi Foundation is renewed for organising temporary exhibition in venues around the city. Milan is also home to many public art projects, with a variety of works that range from sculptures to murals to pieces by internationally renowned artists, including Arman, Kengiro Azuma, Francesco Barzaghi, Alberto Burri, Pietro Cascella, Maurizio Cattelan, Leonardo da Vinci, Giorgio de Chirico, Kris Ruhs, Emilio Isgrò, Fausto Melotti, Joan Miró, Carlo Mo, Claes Oldenburg, Igor Mitoraj, Gianfranco Pardi, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Arnaldo Pomodoro, Carlo Ramous, Aldo Rossi, Aligi Sassu, Giuseppe Spagnulo and Domenico Trentacoste.


title: Milan

text: Milan is a major national and international centre of the performing arts, most notably opera. The city hosts La Scala operahouse, considered one of the world's most prestigious, having throughout history witnessed the premieres of numerous operas, such as "Nabucco" by Giuseppe Verdi in 1842, "La Gioconda" by Amilcare Ponchielli, "Madama Butterfly" by Giacomo Puccini in 1904, "Turandot" by Puccini in 1926, and more recently "Teneke", by Fabio Vacchi in 2007. Other major theatres in Milan include the Teatro degli Arcimboldi, Teatro Dal Verme, Teatro Lirico and formerly the Teatro Regio Ducale. The city is also the seat of a renowned symphony orchestra and musical conservatory, and has been, throughout history, a major centre for musical composition: numerous famous composers and musicians such as Gioseppe Caimo, Simon Boyleau, Hoste da Reggio, Verdi, Giulio Gatti-Casazza, Paolo Cherici and Alice Edun lived and worked in Milan. The city is also the birthplace of many modern ensembles and bands, including Camaleonti, Camerata Mediolanense, Gli Spioni, Dynamis Ensemble, Elio e le Storie Tese, Krisma, Premiata Forneria Marconi, Quartetto Cetra, Stormy Six and Le Vibrazioni.


title: Milan

text: Milan is widely regarded as a global capital in industrial design, fashion and architecture. In the 1950s and 60s, as the main industrial centre of Italy and one of Europe's most dynamic cities, Milan became a world capital of design and architecture. There was such a revolutionary change that Milan's fashion exports accounted for 726 million in 1952, and by 1955 that number grew to 72.5 billion. Modern skyscrapers, such as the Pirelli Tower and the Torre Velasca were built, and artists such as Bruno Munari, Lucio Fontana, Enrico Castellani and Piero Manzoni gathered in the city. Today, Milan is still particularly well known for its high-quality furniture and interior design industry. The city is home to FieraMilano, Europe's largest permanent trade exhibition, and Salone Internazionale del Mobile, one of the most prestigious international furniture and design fairs.


title: Milan

text: Milan is also regarded as one of the fashion capitals of the world, along with New York City, Paris, and London. Milan is synonymous with the Italian prêt-à-porter industry, as many of the most famous Italian fashion brands, such as Valentino, Gucci, Versace, Prada, Armani and Dolce & Gabbana, are headquartered in the city. Numerous international fashion labels also operate shops in Milan. Furthermore, the city hosts the Milan Fashion Week twice a year, one of the most important events in the international fashion system. Milan's main upscale fashion district, "quadrilatero della moda", is home to the city's most prestigious shopping streets (Via Monte Napoleone, Via della Spiga, Via Sant'Andrea, Via Manzoni and Corso Venezia), in addition to Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, one of the world's oldest shopping malls.


title: Milan

text: In the late 18th century, and throughout the 19th, Milan was an important centre for intellectual discussion and literary creativity. The Enlightenment found here a fertile ground. Cesare, Marquis of Beccaria, with his famous "Dei delitti e delle pene", and Count Pietro Verri, with the periodical "Il Caffè" were able to exert a considerable influence over the new middle-class culture, thanks also to an open-minded Austrian administration.


title: Milan

text: In the first years of the 19th century, the ideals of the Romantic movement made their impact on the cultural life of the city and its major writers debated the primacy of Classical versus Romantic poetry. Additionally, Giuseppe Parini and Ugo Foscolo published their most important works, and were admired by younger poets as masters of ethics, as well as of literary craftsmanship. Foscolo's poem "Dei sepolcri" was inspired by a Napoleonic law that—against the will of many of its inhabitants—was being extended to the city.


title: Milan

text: In the third decade of the 19th century, Alessandro Manzoni wrote his novel "I Promessi Sposi", considered the manifesto of Italian Romanticism, which found in Milan its centre; in the same period Carlo Porta, reputed the most renowned local vernacular poet, wrote his poems in Lombard Language. The periodical "Il Conciliatore" published articles by Silvio Pellico, Giovanni Berchet, Ludovico di Breme, who were both Romantic in poetry and patriotic in politics.


title: Milan

text: After the Unification of Italy in 1861, Milan retained a sort of central position in cultural debates. New ideas and movements from other countries of Europe were accepted and discussed: thus Realism and Naturalism gave birth to prewar Italian movement of "Verismo" in Southern Italy, its greatest "Verista" novelist Giovanni Verga formed in Sicily who wrote his most important books in Milan.


title: Milan

text: In addition to Italian, approximately 2 million people in Northern Italy can speak the Milanese dialect or other Western Lombard variation.


title: Milan

text: Milan is an important national and international media centre. "Corriere della Sera", founded in 1876, is one of the oldest Italian newspapers, and it is published by Rizzoli, as well as "La Gazzetta dello Sport", a daily dedicated to coverage of various sports and currently considered the most widely read daily newspaper in Italy.


title: Milan

text: Other local dailies are the general broadsheets "Il Giorno", "Il Giornale", the Catholic newspaper "Avvenire", and "Il Sole 24 Ore", a daily business newspaper owned by Confindustria (the Italian employers' federation). Free daily newspapers include "Leggo" and "Metro".


title: Milan

text: Milan is also home to many architecture, art, and fashion periodicals, including "Abitare", "Casabella", "Domus", "Flash Art", "Gioia", "Grazia", and "Vogue Italia". "Panorama" and "Oggi", two of Italy's most important weekly news magazines, are also published in Milan.


title: Milan

text: Several commercial broadcast television networks have their national headquarters in the Milan conurbation, including Mediaset Group (owner of Canale 5, Italia 1, Iris and Rete 4), Telelombardia and MTV Italy. National radio stations based in Milan include Radio Deejay, Radio 105 Network, R101 (Italy), Radio Popolare, RTL 102.5, Radio Capital and Virgin Radio Italia.


title: Milan

text: Like most cities in Italy, Milan has developed its own local culinary tradition, which, as it is typical for North Italian cuisines, uses more frequently rice than pasta, butter than vegetable oil and features almost no tomato or fish. Milanese traditional dishes includes "cotoletta alla milanese", a breaded veal (pork and turkey can be used) cutlet pan-fried in butter (similar to Viennese Wiener Schnitzel). Other typical dishes are "cassoeula" (stewed pork rib chops and sausage with Savoy cabbage), "ossobuco" (braised veal shank served with a condiment called "gremolata"), "risotto alla milanese" (with saffron and beef marrow), "busecca" (stewed tripe with beans), "mondeghili" (meatballs made with leftover meat fried in butter), and "brasato" (stewed beef or pork with wine and potatoes).


title: Milan

text: Season-related pastries include "chiacchiere" (flat fritters dusted with sugar) and "tortelli" (fried spherical cookies) for Carnival, "colomba" (glazed cake shaped as a dove) for Easter, "pane dei morti" ("bread of the (Day of the) Dead", cookies flavoured with cinnamon) for All Souls' Day and panettone for Christmas. The "salame Milano", a salami with a very fine grain, is widespread throughout Italy. Renowned Milanese cheeses are gorgonzola (from the namesake village nearby), mascarpone, used in pastry-making, taleggio and quartirolo.


title: Milan

text: Milan is well known for its world-class restaurants and cafés, characterised by innovative cuisine and design. , Milan has 157 Michelin-selected places, including three 2-Michelin-starred restaurants; these include Cracco, Sadler and il Luogo di Aimo e Nadia. Many historical restaurants and bars are found in the historic centre, the Brera and Navigli districts. One of the city's oldest surviving cafés, Caffè Cova, was established in 1817. In total, Milan has 15 cafés, bars and restaurants registered among the Historical Places of Italy, continuously operating for at least 70 years.


title: Milan

text: Milan hosted matches at the FIFA World Cup in 1934 and 1990 and the UEFA European Championship in 1980, and more recently held the 2003 World Rowing Championships, the 2009 World Boxing Championships, and some games of the Men's Volleyball World Championship in 2010 and the final games of the Women's Volleyball World Championship in 2014. In 2018, Milan hosted the World Figure Skating Championships. Milan will host the 2026 Winter Olympics as well as the 2026 Winter Paralympics jointly with Cortina d'Ampezzo.


title: Milan

text: Milan is the only city in Europe that is home to two European Cup/Champions League winning teams: Serie A football clubs A.C. Milan and Inter. They are two of the most successful clubs in the world of football in terms of international trophies. Both teams have also won the FIFA Club World Cup (formerly the Intercontinental Cup). With a combined ten Champions League titles, Milan is only second to Madrid as the city with the most European Cups. Both teams play at the UEFA 5-star-rated Giuseppe Meazza Stadium, more commonly known as the San Siro, that is one of the biggest stadiums in Europe, with a seating capacity of over 80,000. The Meazza Stadium has hosted four European Cup/Champions League finals, most recently in 2016, when Real Madrid defeated Atlético Madrid 5–3 in a penalty shoot-out. A third team, Brera Calcio, plays in Prima Categoria, the seventh tier of Italian football. Another team, Milano City F.C. (a successor of Bustese Calcio), plays in Serie D, the fourth level.


title: Milan

text: Milan is one of the host cities of the EuroBasket 2022. There are currently four professional Lega Basket clubs in Milan: Olimpia Milano, Pallacanestro Milano 1958, Società Canottieri Milano and A.S.S.I. Milano. Olimpia is the most decorated basketball club in Italy, having won 27 Italian League championships, six Italian National Cups, one Italian Super Cup, three European Champions Cups, one FIBA Intercontinental Cup, three FIBA Saporta Cups, two FIBA Korać Cups and many junior titles. The team play at the Mediolanum Forum, with a capacity of 12,700, where it has been hosted the final of the 2013–14 Euroleague. In some cases the team also plays at the PalaDesio, with a capacity of 6,700.


title: Milan

text: Milan is also home to Italy's oldest American football team: Rhinos Milano, who have won five Italian Super Bowls. The team plays at the Velodromo Vigorelli, with a capacity of 8,000. Another American football team that use the same venue is the Seamen Milano, who will join the professional European League of Football in 2023. Milan has also two cricket teams: Milano Fiori, currently competing in the second division, and Kingsgrove Milan, who won the Serie A championship in 2014. Amatori Rugby Milano, the most decorated rugby team in Italy, was founded in Milan in 1927. The Monza Formula One circuit is located near the city, inside a suburban park. It is one of the world's oldest car racing circuits. The capacity for the F1 races is currently over 113,000. It has hosted an F1 race nearly every year since the first year of competition, with the exception of 1980.


title: Milan

text: In road cycling, Milan hosts the start of the annual Milan–San Remo classic one-day race and the annual Milano–Torino one day race. Milan is also the traditional finish for the final stage of the Giro d'Italia, which, along with the Tour de France and the Vuelta a España, is one of cycling's three Grand Tours.


title: Milan

text: Milan is a major global centre of higher education teaching and research and has the second largest concentration of higher education institutes in Italy after Rome. Milan's higher education system includes 7 universities, 48 faculties and 142 departments, with 185,000 university students enrolled in 2011 (approximately 11 percent of the national total) and the largest number of university graduates and postgraduate students (34,000 and more than 5,000, respectively) in Italy.


title: Milan

text: The University of Milan (also known as the "State University") founded in 1923, is the largest public teaching and research university in the city. The University of Milan is the sixth-largest university in Italy, with approximately 60,000 enrolled students and a teaching staff of 2,500. Most relevant academics are in the fields of medicine, law and politics, and sustainability. Notable alumni such as former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and Nobel laureates earned their degree at University of Milan.


title: Milan

text: University of Milano-Bicocca, established in 1998 is the city's newest institution of higher education in science and technology. Built over a once industrial area, today enrolls more than 30,000 students, of which more than 60% are females. As its older parent institute, it is one of the most sought-after location for medical students.


title: Milan

text: The Polytechnic University of Milan is the city's oldest university, founded in 1863. With over 40,000 students, it is the largest technical university in Italy.


title: Milan

text: Catholic University of the Sacred Heart is the largest private teaching university in Europe and the largest Catholic University in the world with 42,000 enrolled students.


title: Milan

text: Bocconi University is a private management and finance university established in 1902, ranking as the best university in Italy in its fields, and as one of the best in the world. In 2020, QS World University Rankings (viewed as one of the three most-widely read university rankings in the world) ranked the university 7th worldwide and 3rd in Europe in business and management studies, as well as 1st in economics and econometrics outside the U.S. and the U.K.


title: Milan

text: The Financial Times ranked it the sixth best business school in Europe in 2018. Bocconi University also ranks as the 5th best 1 year MBA course in the world, according to the Forbes 2017 ranking.


title: Milan

text: Vita-Salute San Raffaele University is a private teaching medical university linked to the San Raffaele Hospital.


title: Milan

text: University Institute of Languages and Communication (also known as "University IULM") is a private teaching university established in 1968, later renamed from its original name "University Institute of Languages of Milan", becoming first Italian university offering courses on public relations; later it became a point of reference also for business communication; media and advertising; translation and interpreting; communication in culture and arts markets, tourism and fashion.


title: Milan

text: Milan is also well known for its fine arts and music schools. The Milan Academy of Fine Arts (Brera Academy) is a public academic institution founded in 1776 by Empress Maria Theresa of Austria; the New Academy of Fine Arts is the largest private art and design university in Italy; the European Institute of Design is a private university specialised in fashion, industrial and interior design, audio/visual design including photography, advertising and marketing and business communication; the Marangoni Institute, is a fashion institute with campuses in Milan, London, and Paris; the Domus Academy is a private postgraduate institution of design, fashion, architecture, interior design and management; the Pontifical Ambrosian Institute of Sacred Music, a college of music founded in 1931 by the blessed cardinal A.I. Schuster, archbishop of Milan, and raised according to the rules by the Holy See in 1940, is—similarly to the Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music in Rome, which is consociated with—an Institute "ad instar facultatis" and is authorised to confer university qualifications with canonical validity and the Milan Conservatory, a college of music established in 1807, currently Italy's largest with more than 1,700 students and 240 music teachers.


title: Milan

text: Milan is one of the key transport nodes of Italy and southern Europe. Its central railway station is Italy's second and Europe's eighth busiest. The Malpensa, Linate and Orio al Serio airports serve the Greater Milan, the largest metropolitan area in Italy.


title: Milan

text: Azienda Trasporti Milanesi (ATM) is the Milanese municipal transport company; it operates 5 metro lines, 18 tram lines, 131 bus lines, 4 trolleybus lines, and 1 people mover line, carrying about 776 million passengers in 2018. Overall the network covers nearly reaching 46 municipalities. Besides public transport, ATM manages the interchange parking lots and other transport services including bike sharing and carsharing systems.


title: Milan

text: The Milan Metro is the rapid transit system serving the city and surrounding municipalities. The network consists of 4 lines (plus one under construction), with a total network length of , and a total of 113 stations, mostly underground. It has a daily ridership of 1.15 million, the largest in Italy as well as one of the largest in Europe.


title: Milan

text: The Milan suburban railway service, operated by Trenord, comprises 12 S lines connecting the metropolitan area with the city centre, with possible transfers to all the metro lines. Most S lines run through the Milan Passerby railway, commonly referred to as "il Passante" and served by double-decker trains every 4/8 minutes in the central underground section.


title: Milan

text: Milan Central station, with 120 million passengers per year, is the largest and eighth busiest railway station in Europe and the second busiest in Italy after Rome. Milano Cadorna and Milano Porta Garibaldi stations are respectively the seventh and the eleventh busiest stations in Italy. Since the end of 2009, two high-speed train lines link Milan to Rome, Naples and Turin, considerably shortening travel times with other major cities in Italy. Further high-speed lines are under construction towards Genoa and Verona. Milan is served by direct international trains to Nice, Marseille, Lyon, Paris, Lugano, Geneva, Bern, Basel, Zurich and Frankfurt, and by overnight sleeper services to Paris and Dijon (Thello), Munich and Vienna (ÖBB).


title: Milan

text: Milan is also the core of Lombardy's regional train network. Regional trains were operated on two different systems by LeNord (departing from Milano Cadorna) and Trenitalia (departing from Milan Centrale and Milano Porta Garibaldi). Since 2011, a new company, Trenord, operates both Trenitalia and LeNord regional trains in Lombardy, carrying over 750,000 passengers on more than 50 routes every day.


title: Milan

text: The city tram network consists of approximately of track and 18 lines, and is Europe's most advanced light rail system. Bus lines cover over . Milan has also taxi services operated by private companies and licensed by the City council of Milan. The city is also a key node for the national road network, being served by all the major highways of Northern Italy. Numerous long-distance bus lines link Milan with many other cities and towns in Lombardy and throughout Italy.


title: Milan

text: The Milan metropolitan area is served by three international airports, with a grand total of about 47 million passengers served in 2018.


title: Milan

text: The bicycle is becoming an increasingly important mode of transportation in Milan. Since 2008, the implementation of a city-wide network of bike paths has been initiated, to fight congestion and air pollution. During the COVID pandemic in 2019, 35 km of bike lanes have been realized on short notice, to relieve pressure on the subway occupation. The bike sharing systems BikeMi has been deployed in almost all the city and enjoys increasing popularity. Stationless commercial bike and scooter sharing systems are widely available.


title: Milan

text: The partnership with Saint Petersburg was suspended in 2012 (a decision taken by the city of Milan), because of the prohibition of the Russian government on "homosexual propaganda". However, it was later restored and as of 2022, St. Petersburg is still listed on Milan's official list of twin towns.


title: Billy Crudup

text: William Gaither Crudup (; born July 8, 1968) is an American actor. He is a four-time Tony Award nominee, winning once for his performance in Tom Stoppard's play "The Coast of Utopia" in 2007. He has starred in numerous high-profile films, including "Without Limits" (1998), "Almost Famous" (2000), "Big Fish" (2003), "" (2006), "Watchmen" (2009), "Public Enemies" (2009), "The Stanford Prison Experiment" (2015), "Jackie" (2016), and "" (2017), in both lead and supporting roles. He has been nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for Best Male Lead for his performance in "Jesus' Son", and received two Screen Actors Guild Award nominations as part of an ensemble cast for "Almost Famous" and "Spotlight", winning for the latter.


title: Billy Crudup

text: Crudup starred in the streaming television series "Gypsy" (2017) and "The Morning Show" (2019), the latter of which earned him a Primetime Emmy Award and a Critics' Choice Television Award.


title: Billy Crudup

text: Crudup was born in Manhasset, New York. His parents, Georgann (née Gaither) and Thomas Henry Crudup III, divorced during his childhood, and later remarried, before divorcing a second time. On his father's side, he is a descendant of Congressman Josiah Crudup of North Carolina. His maternal grandfather was William Cotter "Billy" Gaither, Jr., a well-known Florida trial lawyer, and his maternal grandmother later remarried to Episcopal bishop James Duncan. Born second of three boys, Crudup has two brothers: Tommy, an executive producer, and Brooks, also a producer. He left New York with his family when he was about eight years old, first living in Texas, then in Florida. He graduated from Saint Thomas Aquinas High School in Fort Lauderdale, Florida in 1986.


title: Billy Crudup

text: Crudup attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he received an undergraduate degree, and he continued his passion for acting with the undergraduate acting company, LAB! Theatre. He also acted for UNC-STV's most popular show, General College. He was a member of the Beta Chapter of Delta Kappa Epsilon. He then studied at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts graduate acting program, where he earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in 1994.


title: Billy Crudup

text: Crudup began acting in films such as 1996's "Sleepers", 1997's "Inventing the Abbotts", and 1998's "Without Limits", where he played the role of running legend and Olympian Steve Prefontaine. His first role in an animated feature was in 1999's English release of "Princess Mononoke", in which he starred as Ashitaka. He then played lead guitarist Russell Hammond from Stillwater, the fictional band at the center of Cameron Crowe's "Almost Famous" (2000). In 2006's "The Good Shepherd," he played British spy Arch Cummings, a stand-in for Kim Philby. The same year, he played a supporting role in "". In 2007, he played the leading role of Henry Roth in the film "Dedication".


title: Billy Crudup

text: Crudup completed filming "Watchmen" with director Zack Snyder in Vancouver, British Columbia. He portrayed the superhero Doctor Manhattan. He portrayed former U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner in a TV film about 2008's financial crisis, "Too Big to Fail" (2011). Crudup stars in the Apple TV+ series "The Morning Show", for which he won a Primetime Emmy Award in 2020.


title: Billy Crudup

text: A year after graduating from Tisch, Crudup made his debut on Broadway in the Lincoln Center Theater production of Tom Stoppard's "Arcadia".


title: Billy Crudup

text: Crudup received a 2002 Tony Award nomination for Best Actor in a Play for his performance as the title character in "The Elephant Man" on Broadway, as well as a 2005 nomination for his role as Katurian in the Broadway production of "The Pillowman", also starring Jeff Goldblum, which closed on September 18, 2005. From October 2006 through May 2007, he was featured in the first two parts of "The Coast of Utopia" by Tom Stoppard at Lincoln Center, playing literary critic Vissarion Belinsky, for which he received a 2007 Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play.


title: Billy Crudup

text: In 2011, Crudup received a Tony Award nomination for Featured Actor in a Play for his role in the Broadway revival of "Arcadia".


title: Billy Crudup

text: In August 2013, he co-starred with Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart in the Harold Pinter play "No Man's Land" as well as in "Waiting for Godot" at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre. The shows transferred to The Cort Theatre in New York City, where they ran in repertory until March 2014.


title: Billy Crudup

text: In November 2017, he starred in the world premiere of David Cale's one-man play "Harry Clarke" at Vineyard Theatre. It moved to the Minetta Lane Theatre the following spring.


title: Billy Crudup

text: From 1998 to 2005, Crudup was the narrator for the U.S. television ad campaign "Priceless" for Mastercard. In the ads, the narrator (Crudup) lists the prices of two goods or services, then lists some third, intangible benefit gained from those purchases and concludes, "priceless". He said in 2005 that appearing in the ads "changed my life", in that they gave him the financial freedom to pursue the acting work that he wanted to do.


title: Billy Crudup

text: From 1996 to November 2003, Crudup was in a relationship with actress Mary-Louise Parker. Parker was seven months pregnant with their son, born in January 2004, when Crudup ended their relationship and began dating actress Claire Danes. Crudup and Danes separated in 2006.


title: Billy Crudup

text: The following is a list of accolades Crudup has received or been nominated for throughout his film, television and theatre career:


title: 2022 Winter Olympics

text: The 2022 Winter Olympics (2022年冬季奥林匹克运动会), officially called the XXIV Olympic Winter Games () and commonly known as Beijing 2022 (2022), was an international winter multi-sport event held from 4 to 20 February 2022 in Beijing, China, and surrounding areas with competition in selected events beginning 2 February 2022. It was the 24th edition of the Winter Olympic Games.


title: 2022 Winter Olympics

text: Beijing was selected as host city in 2015 at the 128th IOC Session in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, marking its second time hosting the Olympics, and the last of three consecutive Olympics hosted in East Asia following the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang County, South Korea, and the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Japan. Having previously hosted the 2008 Summer Olympics, Beijing became the first city to have hosted both the Summer and Winter Olympics. The venues for the Games were concentrated around Beijing, its suburb Yanqing District, and Zhangjiakou, with some events (including the ceremonies and curling) repurposing venues originally built for Beijing 2008 (such as Beijing National Stadium and the Beijing National Aquatics Centre).


title: 2022 Winter Olympics

text: The Games featured a record 109 events across 15 disciplines, with big air freestyle skiing and women's monobob making their Olympic debuts as medal events, as well as several new mixed competitions. A total of 2,871 athletes representing 91 teams competed in the Games, with Haiti and Saudi Arabia making their Winter Olympic debut.


title: 2022 Winter Olympics

text: Beijing's hosting of the Games was subject to various concerns and controversies including those related to human rights violations in China, such as the Uyghur genocide, which led to calls for a boycott of the games. Like the Summer Olympics held six months earlier in Tokyo, the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in the implementation of health and safety protocols, and, for the second Games in a row, the Games being closed to the public (with selected events open to invited guests at a reduced capacity).


title: 2022 Winter Olympics

text: Norway finished at the top of the medal table for the second successive Winter Olympics, winning a total of 37 medals, of which 16 were gold, setting a new record for the largest number of gold medals won at a single Winter Olympics. The host nation China finished third with nine gold medals and also eleventh place by total medals won, marking its most successful performance in Winter Olympics history.


title: 2022 Winter Olympics

text: The bidding calendar was announced by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in October 2012, with the application deadline set for 14 November 2013. The IOC Executive Board reviewed the bids from all applicant cities on 7 July 2014 and selected three cities, Oslo (Norway), Almaty (Kazakhstan), and Beijing (China), as the final candidates.


title: 2022 Winter Olympics

text: Several bid cities withdrew their bids during the process, citing the high costs or the lack of local support and funding for hosting the Games. The Oslo bid, considered the clear frontrunner, was canceled in the wake of a series of revelations about the IOC's demands for luxury treatment of IOC members that strongly turned public opinion and the parliamentary majority against the bid. The city withdrew its application for government funding after a majority of the Norwegian parliament had stated their intention to decline the application. In the days before the decision, Norwegian media had revealed the IOC's "diva-like demands for luxury treatment" for the IOC members themselves, such as special lanes on all roads only to be used by IOC members and cocktail reception at the Royal Palace with drinks paid for by the royal family. The IOC also "demanded control over all advertising space throughout Oslo" to be used exclusively by IOC's sponsors, something that is not possible in Norway because the government doesn't own or control "all advertising space throughout Oslo" and has no authority to give a foreign private organization exclusive use of a city and the private property within it. Several commentators pointed out that such demands were unheard of in a western democracy; "Slate" described the IOC as a "notoriously ridiculous organization run by grifters and hereditary aristocrats." Ole Berget, deputy minister in the Finance Ministry, said "the IOC's arrogance was an argument held high by a lot of people." The country's largest newspaper commented that "Norway is a rich country, but we don't want to spend money on wrong things, like satisfying the crazy demands from IOC apparatchiks. These insane demands that they should be treated like the king of Saudi Arabia just won't fly with the Norwegian public."


title: 2022 Winter Olympics

text: Beijing was selected as the host city of the 2022 Winter Olympics after beating Almaty by four votes on 31 July 2015 at the 128th IOC Session in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.


title: 2022 Winter Olympics

text: In February 2021, Beijing announced that the 26 venues (including training venues) for these sports would be running on entirely renewable energy.


title: 2022 Winter Olympics

text: There were three different clusters of venues designed and constructed for the 2022 Winter Olympics, each respectively known as the Beijing Zone, the Zhangjiakou Zone, and the Yanging Zone.


title: 2022 Winter Olympics

text: Venues in the Beijing Zone exist in different conditions; some were recently constructed exclusively for the 2022 games, while the rest were renovated from the 2008 Summer Olympics or other existing sites. The Beijing Zone of the 2022 Winter Olympics consisted of six competition venues and was where the Opening and Closing Ceremonies, for both the 2022 Winter Olympics and 2008 Summer Olympics, would take place.


title: 2022 Winter Olympics

text: Five ice events were held at the Olympic Green, the Capital Indoor Stadium and the Beijing Wukesong Sports Center, which had been some of the main venues of the 2008 Summer Olympics. The Big Air snowboarding and freestyle skiing events were held in a former industrial area in Shijingshan District, at Western Hills area. Since the end of 2009, the Beijing Olympic Village apartments on the Olympic Green had been transformed into a residential area. There was therefore a need to build another Olympic Village on a smaller scale for the Winter Olympics. These new buildings are located in the southern area of Olympic Green on the neighbourhood of the National Olympic Sports Center.


title: 2022 Winter Olympics

text: The Beijing National Stadium was an iconic venue in the Beijing Zone, and it is also known as the Bird's Nest (鸟巢; "Niǎocháo"). The Beijing National Stadium was the site that hosted the Opening and Closing Ceremonies for the 2022 Winter Olympics, but it was no longer a venue for any competition in 2022.


title: 2022 Winter Olympics

text: The National Aquatics Center (国家游泳中心 Guójiā Yóuyǒng Zhōngxīn /gwor-jyaa yoh-yong jong-sshin/), also known as the Water Cube, was the venue for Curling competition. In the 2022 Winter Olympics, the National Aquatics Center became the first Olympic venue to incorporate a curling track in the swimming pool.


title: 2022 Winter Olympics

text: The Shougang Big Air (首钢滑雪大跳台中心 Shǒugāng Huáxuě Dàtiàotái Zhōngxīn /shoh-gung hwaa-sshwair daa-tyao-teye jong-sshin/) was a newly constructed site for the 2022 Winter Olympics. The Shougang Big Air hosted the freestyle skiing and snowboarding events.


title: 2022 Winter Olympics

text: The Wukesong Sports Centre (五棵松体育馆 Wǔkēsōng Tǐyùguǎn /woo-ker-song tee-yoo-gwan/) was under an 8-month renovation for the 2022 Winter Olympics. In February 2022, the Wukesong Sports Centre hosted the 2022 Winter Olympics Men's and Women's ice hockey tournaments.


title: 2022 Winter Olympics

text: The National Indoor Stadium (国家体育馆 Guójiā Tǐyùguǎn /gwor-jyaa tee-yoo-gwan/) was the second venue for the ice hockey tournament for the 2022 Winter Olympics, besides the Wukesong Sports Centre.


title: 2022 Winter Olympics

text: The National Speed Skating Oval (国家速滑馆 Guójiā Sùhuáguǎn /gwor-jyaa soo-hwaa-gwan/) has the nickname "Ice Ribbon" due to its exterior design. The National Speed Skating Oval was the venue for speed skating in the 2022 Winter Olympics.


title: 2022 Winter Olympics

text: The Capital Indoor Stadium (首都体育馆 Shǒudū Tǐyùguǎn), also known as the Capital Gymnasium, was a venue adapted from the 2008 Summer Olympics and was reconstructed for short-track speed skating and figure skating competitions in the 2022 Winter Olympics.


title: 2022 Winter Olympics

text: Yanqing District is a suburban district localized at the Beijing's far north. Competitions for luge, skeleton, bobsleigh and alpine skiing were held in Xiaohaituo Mountain area in the West Dazhuangke village of Zhangshanying in Yanqing District, northwest of the urban area of Beijing, away from the city center of Beijing and away from the town of Yanqing, using artificial snow because of the rarity of natural snow in this region.


title: 2022 Winter Olympics

text: All other skiing events were held in Taizicheng Area in Chongli District, Zhangjiakou city, Hebei province. It is from downtown Beijing and away from Xiaohaituo Mountain Area. The ski resort earned over ¥ 1.54 billion (US$237.77 million) in tourism during the 2015–16 winter season for a 31.6% growth over the previous season. In 2016, it was announced that Chongli received 2.185 million tourists, an increase of 30% from the previous season, during the first snow season after winning the Olympic bid. The snow season lasted for five months from November, during which Chongli has hosted thirty-six competitions and activities, such as Far East Cup and Children Skiing International Festival. A total of twenty-three skiing camps have also been set up, attracting the participation of 3,800 youths. All the venues construction started in November 2016 and was finished by the end of 2020 to enable the city to hold test events.


title: 2022 Winter Olympics

text: The design for the Games' medals was unveiled on 26 October 2021. The concept is based on traditional Chinese astronomy and astrology as the games were held coinciding with the Chinese New Year festivities.


title: 2022 Winter Olympics

text: The uniforms for medal presenters at medal ceremonies were unveiled in January 2022. The uniforms have been designed by the Central Academy of Fine Arts and Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology.


title: 2022 Winter Olympics

text: The torch relay started on 18 October 2021 in Greece. On 20 October 2021, it was announced that the local leg would start on 2 February and end on 4 February 2022 during the Opening Ceremonies. The local leg only visited two cities: Beijing and Zhangjiakou. Activists staged a protest at the Olympic torch lighting ceremony in Greece.


title: 2022 Winter Olympics

text: The inclusion and television appearance of Qi Fabao, a People's Liberation Army commander well known in China for his involvement in the 2020–2021 China–India skirmishes, as one of 1,200 torchbearers have been controversial, with India launching a diplomatic boycott of the Games as a result.


title: 2022 Winter Olympics

text: The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in changes in the qualifying process for curling and women's ice hockey due to the cancellation of tournaments in 2020. Qualification for curling was based on placement in the 2021 World Curling Championships and an Olympic Qualification Event that completed the field (in place of points earned across the 2020 and 2021 World Curling Championships). The IIHF based its qualification for the women's tournament upon existing IIHF World Rankings, without holding the 2020 Women's World Championship.


title: 2022 Winter Olympics

text: On 29 September 2021, the IOC announced biosecurity protocols for the Games; all athletes were required to remain within the bio-secure bubble (referred to as a "closed-loop management system") for the duration of their participation, which included daily COVID-19 testing, and only being allowed to travel to and from Games-related venues. Unless they are fully-vaccinated or have a valid medical exemption, all athletes were required to quarantine for 21 days upon their arrival. Mirroring a protocol adopted for the 2020 Summer Olympics before they were moved behind closed doors, the IOC also announced that only residents of the People's Republic of China would be permitted to attend the Games as spectators.


title: 2022 Winter Olympics

text: On 23 December 2021, the National Hockey League (NHL) and National Hockey League Players' Association (NHLPA) announced that they had agreed to withdraw their players' participation in the Games' men's hockey tournament, citing concerns over COVID-19 and the need to make up games that had been postponed due to COVID-19 outbreaks. As part of their latest collective agreement with the NHLPA, the NHL had agreed to accommodate a break for the Olympics and player participation for the first time since 2014.


title: 2022 Winter Olympics

text: On 17 January 2022, amid increasing lockdowns across China and the first detected case of the Omicron variant in Beijing, it was announced that ticket sales to the general public were cancelled, and that limited numbers of spectators would be admitted by invitation only. These, therefore, became the second Olympics in a row that were closed to the general public. In the lead-up to the Games, organizers stated that they had aimed for at least 30% capacity at each venue, divided equally between spectators from within the "closed loop" (including dignitaries, delegations, and the press), and invited guests from outside of it (including local residents, school students, winter sports enthusiasts, and marketing partners). At least 150,000 spectators from outside the "closed loop" were expected to attend. Spectators were only present at events held in Beijing and Zhangjiakou; all events in Yanqing were held behind closed doors with no spectators permitted.


title: 2022 Winter Olympics

text: Everyone present at the Games, including athletes, staff, and attendees, were required to use the My2022 mobile app as part of the biosecurity protocols, which was used for submissions of customs declarations and health records for travel to the Games, daily health self-reporting, and records of COVID-19 vaccination and testing. The app also provided news and information relating to the Games, and messaging functions. Concerns raised about the security of the My2022 app and how information collected by it would be used.


title: 2022 Winter Olympics

text: Because of the strict COVID-19 protocol, some top athletes, considered to be medal contenders, were not able to travel to China after having tested positive, even if asymptomatic. The cases included Austrian ski jumper Marita Kramer, the leader of the World Cup ranking, and Russian skeletonist Nikita Tregubov, silver medalist of the 2018 Winter Olympics.


title: 2022 Winter Olympics

text: The new Beijing–Zhangjiakou intercity railway opened in late 2019, starting from Beijing North railway station and ending at Zhangjiakou railway station. It was built for speeds of up to ; with this new road system, the travel time from Beijing to Zhangjiakou was decreased to around 50 minutes. A dedicated train for the Winter Olympics began to run on this line in January 2022, featuring a mobile television studio that supports live broadcast on the train.


title: 2022 Winter Olympics

text: Planned before the city was awarded the rights to the Games, the Beijing Daxing International Airport opened in 2019, and due to the strategic location, it would be the main focus for the arrival and entry of delegations on Chinese soil. Chinese officials had hoped that this airport would replace Beijing Capital International Airport as the country's main hub for arrivals and departures between its opening and the Winter Games and reduce the international and domestic demands of the older airport. This airport replaced the old Beijing Nanyuan Airport which was out of date and was on the list of the most dangerous airports in the world because of its location and since its opening, it has been sharing the local and international demands of the city and the country with the older Beijing Capital International Airport. However, according to the COVID-19 pandemic security protocol manual issued by BOCWOG and International Olympic Committee, all foreign delegations could only enter and leave Beijing via the Capital International Airport due to its smaller size and the fact that it is closer to the city center and Olympic Green and has specific isolation areas and a better health protocols.


title: 2022 Winter Olympics

text: The original estimated budget for the Games was US$3.9 billion, less than one-tenth of the $43 billion spent on the 2008 Summer Olympics. However, it was estimated that the true budget was likely more than US$38.5 billion, ten times higher than the original estimate.


title: 2022 Winter Olympics

text: The opening ceremony of the 2022 Winter Olympics was held on 4 February 2022 at Beijing National Stadium.


title: 2022 Winter Olympics

text: Amid the political controversies and tensions impacting the Games, IOC president Thomas Bach instructed athletes to "show how the world would look like, if we all respect the same rules and each other", and pledged that "there [would] be no discrimination for any reason whatsoever."


title: 2022 Winter Olympics

text: The final seven torchbearers reflected multiple decades of Chinese athletes, beginning with the 1950s, and concluding with two skiers competing in the Games—21 year-old skier Zhao Jiawen from Shanxi (the first Chinese athlete to compete in Nordic combined), and 20-year-old Dinigeer Yilamujiang from the Xinjiang autonomous region (cross-country, and the first Chinese cross-country skier to win a medal in an ISF event).


title: 2022 Winter Olympics

text: For the first time in Olympic history, the final torchbearers did not light a cauldron: instead, they fitted the torch into the centre of a large stylised snowflake, constructed from placards bearing the names of the delegations competing in the Games. Three similar snowflakes were also erected as public flames, with one outside of the stadium lit by a volunteer, one in Yanqing District lit by speed skater Yu Jongjun, and the third in Zhangjiakou lit by skier Wang Wezhuo.


title: 2022 Winter Olympics

text: The closing ceremony of the 2022 Winter Olympics was held at Beijing National Stadium on 20 February 2022; it included a cultural presentation, closing remarks, and the formal handover to Milan and Cortina d'Ampezzo as hosts of the 2026 Winter Olympics.


title: 2022 Winter Olympics

text: The 2022 Winter Olympics include a record 109 events over 15 disciplines in seven sports. There are seven new medal events, including men's and women's big air freestyle, women's monobob, mixed team competitions in freestyle skiing aerials, ski jumping, and snowboard cross, and the mixed relay in short track speed skating.


title: 2022 Winter Olympics

text: In October 2016, the International Ski Federation (FIS) announced plans to begin permitting women's competitions in Nordic combined, to contest the discipline at the Olympic level for the first time in Beijing. In November 2017, a further three events were put forward by the FIS for possible Olympic inclusion: a ski jumping mixed team competition and men's and women's big air in freestyle skiing. At their May 2018 Congress at the Costa Navarino resort in Messenia, Greece, the FIS submitted several additional events for consideration, including a proposal to make telemark skiing an Olympic discipline for the first time in Beijing, with proposed competitions to include the men's and women's parallel sprint and a mixed team parallel sprint. The Congress also approved to submit the aerials mixed team event, and several new snowboarding events: the men and women's snowboard cross team event; a mixed team alpine parallel event; the men's and women's parallel special slalom; and a mixed team parallel special slalom event. The individual parallel special slalom events were featured at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, but were dropped from the Olympic program in 2018 to make way for the snowboarding big air competitions.


title: 2022 Winter Olympics

text: The International Luge Federation (FIL) proposed the addition of six new events, including natural track luge (men's and women's singles), a women's doubles competition on the artificial track, and sprint events (men, women, and doubles) on the artificial track.


title: 2022 Winter Olympics

text: The International Skating Union (ISU) continued to campaign for the addition of synchronized skating as a new event within the discipline of figure skating. The ISU also proposed a new mixed team event in short track speed skating.


title: 2022 Winter Olympics

text: In biathlon, a single mixed relay was proposed by the International Biathlon Union (IBU) to complement the four-person mixed relay that featured at the 2018 Winter Olympics. Also, the International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation (IBSF) proposed a new team event, but there was no plan to introduce a four-woman bobsleigh event despite the recommendation from the federation's executive board to propose such an event in the interests of gender equality.


title: 2022 Winter Olympics

text: In July 2018, the IOC announced changes to the program for the 2022 Winter Olympics as part of a goal to increase the participation of women, and appeal to younger audiences. Seven new medal events were added (expanding the total program to 109 events), including men's and women's big air freestyle, women's monobob, mixed team competitions in freestyle skiing aerials, ski jumping, and snowboard cross, and the mixed relay in short track speed skating. Women's Nordic combined was not added; Nordic combined remains the only Winter Olympic sport only contested by men.


title: 2022 Winter Olympics

text: On 9 December 2019, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) banned Russia from all international sport for four years, after the Russian government was found to have tampered with lab data that it provided to WADA in January 2019 as a condition of the Russian Anti-Doping Agency being reinstated. As a result of the ban, WADA planned to allow individually cleared Russian athletes to take part in the 2020 Summer Olympics under a neutral banner, as instigated at the 2018 Winter Olympics, but they were not permitted to compete in team sports. WADA Compliance Review Committee head Jonathan Taylor stated that the IOC would not be able to use "Olympic Athletes from Russia" (OAR) again, as it did in 2018, emphasizing that neutral athletes cannot be portrayed as representing a specific country. Russia later filed an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) against the WADA decision.


title: 2022 Winter Olympics

text: After reviewing the case on appeal, CAS ruled on 17 December 2020 to reduce the penalty WADA had placed on Russia. Instead of banning Russia from sporting events, the ruling allowed Russia to participate in the Olympics and other international events, but for two years, the team cannot use the Russian name, flag, or anthem and must present themselves as "Neutral Athlete" or "Neutral Team." The ruling does allow for team uniforms to display "Russia" on the uniform as well as the use of the Russian flag colors within the uniform's design, although the name should be up to equal predominance as the "Neutral Athlete/Team" designation.


title: 2022 Winter Olympics

text: On 19 February 2021, it was announced that Russia would compete under the acronym "ROC" after the name of the Russian Olympic Committee although the name of the committee itself in full could not be used to refer to the delegation. Russia would be represented by the flag of the Russian Olympic Committee.


title: 2022 Winter Olympics

text: On 8 September 2021, the IOC Executive Board suspended the Olympic Committee of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) through at least the end of 2022 for violations of the Olympic Charter, over its refusal to send athletes to the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo due to COVID-19 pandemic-related concerns. North Korean athletes would be allowed to participate under the Olympic flag. However, North Korean Ministry of Sports and the National Olympic Committee said in a letter to the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics Organizing Committee, the Chinese Olympic Committee, and the General Administration of Sport of China on 7 January 2022 that "Due to the "action of hostile forces" and the COVID-19 pandemic, they would not be able to participate in the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics." In addition, the North Korean Olympic Committee said "supports all the work of our comrades in China to host a grand and wonderful Olympics. The United States and its followers are plotting anti-Chinese conspiracies to obstruct the successful hosting of the Olympics, but this is an insult to the spirit of the Olympic Charter and an act to damage China's international image. We firmly oppose and reject these actions."


title: 2022 Winter Olympics

text: The following 91 National Olympic Committees have qualified athletes (two less than four years earlier), with Haiti and Saudi Arabia making their Winter Olympic débuts. Kenya qualified one athlete, but withdrew.


title: 2022 Winter Olympics

text: Norway finished at the top of the medal table for the second successive Winter Olympics, winning a total of 37 medals, of which 16 were gold, setting a new record for the largest number of gold medals won at a single Winter Olympics. Germany finished second with 12 golds and 27 medals overall, and the host nation China finished third with nine gold medals, marking their most successful performance in Winter Olympics history. The team representing the ROC ended up with the second largest number of medals won at the Games, with 32, but finished ninth on the medal table, as only six gold medals were won by the delegation. Traditional Winter powerhouse Canada; despite having won 26 medals, only four of them were gold, resulting in a finish outside the top ten in the medal table for the first time since 1988 (34 years).


title: 2022 Winter Olympics

text: The emblem for the 2022 Winter Olympics, "Winter Dream" (冬梦), was unveiled on 15 December 2017 at the Beijing National Aquatics Center. Designed by Lin Cunzhen (who previously designed the emblem of the 2014 Summer Youth Olympics in Nanjing), the emblem is a stylized rendition of the Chinese character for winter (冬) as a multi-coloured ribbon, reflecting upon the landscapes of the host region. The beginning of the ribbon symbolizes an ice skater, while the end of the ribbon symbolizes a skier. The emblem carries a blue, red, and yellow colour scheme: the latter two colours represent both the flag of China, and "passion, youth, and vitality".


title: 2022 Winter Olympics

text: Bing Dwen Dwen was the mascot of the 2022 Winter Olympics. Bing Dwen Dwen was chosen from thousands of Chinese designs in 35 countries worldwide. "Bing" (冰) means ice in Chinese, and was meant to suggest purity and strength. "Dwen Dwen" (墩墩) was meant to suggest robustness, liveliness, and youth. Bing Dwen Dwen's astronaut-like clothes implied that the Winter Olympics embraced new technologies and created possibilities.


title: 2022 Winter Olympics

text: The Games' official slogan, "Together for a Shared Future" (), was announced on 17 September 2021; organisers stated that the slogan was intended to reflect "the power of the Games to overcome global challenges as a community".


title: 2022 Winter Olympics

text: The slogan was compared in media with Chinese leader Xi Jinping's policy slogan: 'Building the Common Future of Humanity'.


title: 2022 Winter Olympics

text: In China, domestic rights to these Games were owned by China Central Television (CCTV), with rights being sublicensed by China Mobile's Migu streaming service. In some countries, broadcast rights to the 2022 Winter Olympics were already agreed upon through existing long-term deals. In France and the United Kingdom, these were the first Games where Eurosport would be the main rightsholder; the BBC sub-licensed a limited amount of coverage on free-to-air television, as part of a deal in which the BBC sold the pay-TV rights to the 2018 and 2020 Games to Eurosport. In January 2022, the BBC announced it would broadcast over 300 hours of free-to-air live coverage, as well as highlights programmes.


title: 2022 Winter Olympics

text: The scheduling of the Games impacted the U.S. broadcast rights to the Super Bowl since this is the first time that the Super Bowl had been held during the Winter Olympics (and the second time that both events had been held in the same year on NBC), the championship game of the National Football League (NFL) and historically the most-watched television broadcast in the United States annually. The rights to the Games rotate between CBS, Fox, and long-time Olympic broadcaster NBC; to prevent the Games from competing for viewership and advertising sales with Super Bowl LVI—which was scheduled for 13 February 2022 at Los Angeles' SoFi Stadium—CBS and NBC announced in March 2019 that they would invert the rights for Super Bowl LVI and LV (2021), so that both the 2022 Winter Olympics and Super Bowl LVI would be broadcast by NBC. In a break from the established practice of airing premieres or special episodes of entertainment programmes after the Super Bowl to take advantage of its large audience, NBC aired its prime time coverage for Day 10 of the Games immediately following Super Bowl LVI. Furthermore, the NFL's new media rights beginning in 2023 (which extends the Super Bowl rotation to four networks) codifies this scenario, with all of NBC's future Super Bowl games being in Winter Olympic years [2026, 2030, and 2034 (if it still has the Olympic rights then)].


title: 2022 Winter Olympics

text: These Games also confirmed an ongoing trend in U.S. viewership of the Olympics; while television viewership had seen a further decline, they were offset by increases in social media engagement and streaming viewership of the Games. Similar trends were seen in Europe, where Eurosport reported an eight-fold increase in streaming viewership on its platforms and Discovery+ over Pyeongchang 2018.


title: 2022 Winter Olympics

text: During the bidding process, critics questioned the Beijing bid, arguing that the proposed outdoor venue sites do not have reliable snowfall in winter for snow sports. Concerns have been raised that snow may need to be transported to the venues at great cost and with uncertain environmental consequences.


title: 2022 Winter Olympics

text: Additional concerns about weather conditions were raised during certain events. Swedish athlete Frida Karlsson nearly collapsed after the women's skiathlon due to low temperatures. Afterwards, the Swedes considered putting in a request for races to be moved to earlier in the day, stating that the afternoons and early evenings scheduled for European TV audiences were hurting the performance of the athletes.


title: 2022 Winter Olympics

text: As with 2008, activists, human rights groups, and diplomats have made calls to boycott the Olympic Games when they are hosted by China. In the aftermath of the 2019 leak of the Xinjiang papers, the 2019–2020 Hong Kong protests, and the Uyghur genocide, calls were made for a boycott of the 2022 Games. Because of these issues, the selection of an athlete from Xinjiang as part of the final torchbearers received a mixed reaction.


title: 2022 Winter Olympics

text: In February 2021, the Chinese Communist Party-owned tabloid "Global Times" warned that China could "seriously sanction any country that follows a boycott." In March 2021, Chinese spokesperson Guo Weimin stated that any attempt to boycott the Olympics would be doomed to fail. China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi also told the EU's foreign policy chief Josep Borrell that they should attend the games to "enhance exchanges on winter sport", and to "foster new highlights" in bilateral cooperation.


title: 2022 Winter Olympics

text: The IOC stated that it remains neutral in all global political issues and that the award of hosting the games does not signal agreement with the host country's political or social situation or its human rights standards. The committee's response to Agence France-Presse read: "We've repeatedly said it: the IOC isn't responsible for the government. It only gives the rights and opportunity for the staging of the Olympic Games. That doesn't mean we agree with all the politics, all the social or human rights issues in the country. And it doesn't mean we approve of all the human rights violations of a person or people." The statement attracted criticism, with Pacific University professor Jules Boykoff accusing the IOC of "hypocrisy".


title: 2022 Winter Olympics

text: After the Russian invasion of Ukraine in late February, "The New York Times" published a report alleging that China requested Russia to delay the invasion until after the Olympics to avoid damaging the Games' public image. Liu Pengyu, spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, has rejected the claims as "speculations without any basis, and intended to blame-shift and smear China".


title: 2022 Winter Olympics

text: The United States boycott of China's Winter Olympics was predominantly due to China's human rights issues on topics such as the systematic oppression of the Uyghurs, Tibetans and the protest in Hong Kong in 2019. The Chinese government implemented many coercive activities in those regions, such as the reeducation campus, mass detention camps, and restricted access to social media.


title: 2022 Winter Olympics

text: In October 2018, American senator Marco Rubio, Senator Jeff Merkley, and Congressmen Jim McGovern and Chris Smith sent a letter, on behalf of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC), to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) requesting the revocation of China’s host right on the 2022 Winter Olympics. The letter stated that "no Olympics should be held in a country whose government is committing genocide and crimes against humanity."


title: 2022 Winter Olympics

text: In November 2021, President Biden proposed "a diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics." The United States is aware of the prospective harsh punishment of being suspended by the National Olympic Committee and was careful regarding the scale and severity of the boycott.


title: 2022 Winter Olympics

text: In December 2021, the Biden administration officially initiated a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, restricting United States government officials' presence to the game.


title: 2022 Winter Olympics

text: In February 2022, Team USA attended the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics without government representatives' support.


title: 2022 Winter Olympics

text: The IOC remained relatively neutral regarding the letter from CECC or the boycott. The IOC negotiated with the Chinese government on specific protocols to ensure the Olympic Games ran smoothly, such as providing unrestricted internet access to foreign journalists.


title: 2022 Winter Olympics

text: From China’s perspective, the United States was "politicizing sports" with the Biden Boycott of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics. The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson, Zhao Lijian, accused the United States of violating the spirit of political neutrality endorsed in the Olympic Charter, emphasizing that an Olympic game should not be a place for political posturing and manipulation. China announced that the United States was not yet officially invited by the host committee; thus, the United States should not have initiated the boycott in the first place.


title: 2022 Winter Olympics

text: Following the United States, many countries in the Western world decided to join the diplomatic boycott to show disapproval of China’s human rights issues.


title: 2022 Winter Olympics

text: An estimated of water was expected to be used to create snow at the various venues. Pyeongchang, South Korea, which held the previous Winter Olympics, also had a cold but similarly arid climate that required vast quantities of artificial snow. Professor Carmen de Jong, a geographer at the University of Strasbourg, argued that these would be the "most unsustainable" Winter Olympics in history. The IOC stated that "a series of water-conserving and recycling designs have been put into place to optimize water usage for snowmaking, human consumption, and other purposes.


title: 2022 Winter Olympics

text: Artificial snow forms a harder piste compared to real snow. It is often favoured by professionals for being fast and "hyper-grippy" but also raises their fear of falling on it. American snowboarder Jamie Anderson compared it to "pretty bulletproof ice" while her teammate Courtney Rummel compared it to the man-made snow in Wisconsin.


title: 2022 Winter Olympics

text: According to Jules Boykoff in February 2022, Beijing's electricity came largely from coal and this coal power was what supported the construction of some Olympic venues. To offset emissions from construction and air travel, China had planted roughly 60 million trees.


title: 2022 Winter Olympics

text: There were concerns about decisions and disqualification in several events during the games. These issues included the following:


title: 2022 Winter Olympics

text: The food and overall conditions in quarantine hotels given to athletes testing positive for COVID-19 were criticised early on. Team officials from delegations including Belgium, Germany, Poland, Finland and the Russian Olympic Committee all brought up issues their athletes faced in quarantine hotels, among them were the lack of internet connections, low-quality food, insufficient facilities and no training equipment.


title: 2022 Winter Olympics

text: With China's Zero-COVID policy, there were issues raised about the process of quarantine at the games. On 2 February, Belgian skeleton athlete Kim Meylemans posted on social media and was in tears about the conditions she faced while in quarantine. According to "Newsweek" and "Time", the hotels' conditions appeared to have improved after the athletes' complaints were made public.


title: 2022 Winter Olympics

text: There were some complaints about the food served outside of quarantine. Germany's alpine coach Christian Schweiger called the catering "extremely questionable" for not having hot meals but he echoed athletes from several nations that the food at the nearby Athletes' Village was great. The US and South Korean teams elected to bring their own food. Austrian skier Matthias Mayer said that Kitzbuehel would have offered "the best of the best" but also that a hot meal right before a race might not bring out top performances.


title: 2022 Winter Olympics

text: Other complaints included low temperatures and related safety concerns. Sweden's Frida Karlsson nearly collapsed at the conclusion of the women's skiathlon cross-country race. Afterwards, her team considered requesting that races held in afternoons and evenings for European TV audiences be moved to earlier during the day. Some athletes resorted to putting tape on their faces and noses to protect them from the bitter cold. Heavy snowfall disrupted a number of competition and training events on 13 February. Thirty-three skiers did not finish their first run of the men's giant slalom. Henrik Kristoffersen of Norway said that he "couldn't see shit." Switzerland's Loic Meillard said, "It's not what I was hoping for but it's part of the game ... we've raced in conditions like that before."