Italy's Ladin minority will be sidelined at the Winter Olympics held in their mountain home

MILAN (AP) — Italy’s Ladin minority settled a millennium ago in the Dolomite mountain hamlet of Anpezo — now the two-time Olympic host city of Cortina d’Ampezzo. But members of this ancient ethnolinguistic group are disappointed that the Winter Games will not spotlight their culture.

Instead, Ladins will wave their flag themselves, both figuratively and literally, with a series of initiatives sharing their identity with visitors — and not just in Cortina, but across all of Ladinia, the Ladin-speaking region that spans five Dolomite valleys and three of Italy's four Olympic territories.

Ladin leaders expected Milan Cortina Olympics organizers would reach out to feature their language and traditions that exist only in Italy, just as organizers have done in previous host cities, from Lillehammer to Beijing.

When they didn't, mayors of all 17 Ladin towns sent a letter soliciting that representation, but received no reply.

"We are cut out, as if we don't exist,'' said Elsa Zardini, head of the Ladin community in Cortina.

Wood carvers and stewards of the forest, Ladins have lived in the Dolomites for 2,000 years. Their legends include the story of Laurin, king of the dwarfs, whose curse is said to have bestowed the region's dramatic pale limestone peaks with their pinkish sunset glow. For religious ceremonies, they wear traditional costumes including colorful dresses and headpieces for women.

Ladin is a Romance language, formed when the Latin of Roman conquerors blended with ancient Rhaetic. The U.N.’s cultural agency lists it as endangered, with just 35,000 speakers. About 2,500 of them live in Cortina, half the town’s population. Its mayor is half Ladin; his mother, from Genoa, didn't want him to learn Ladin for fear it would interfere with his Italian.

Ladinia spans three of the four territories hosting the Games: Veneto, home to Cortina, which will host curling, sliding and women’s Alpine skiing, as well as the autonomous provinces of Alto Adige and Trentino, which are hosting biathlon, cross-country skiing, ski jumping and Nordic combined.

Slalom skier Alex Vinatzer, competing in these Games, is Ladin. So is former Olympic figure skater Carolina Kostner, who won bronze in 2014, and downhill skier Kristian Ghedina, a five-time Olympian.

When Ghedina went to Lillehammer in 1994 to compete in the Winter Games, the Artic Sami people featured in the opening ceremony. In Sydney in 2000, Indigenous Australian Cathy Freeman lit the cauldron. And four years ago, Beijing — even with its record of suppressing some ethnic groups — showcased all of China's 54 ethnic minorities.

But Milan Cortina's 2 1/2-hour opening ceremony on Feb. 6 will not include the Ladins, local organizers confirmed, but will celebrate Italian beauty and culture, including fashion, design and music.

“We want to celebrate those elements that have been exported all over the world,” the opening ceremony's creative director Marco Balich told The Associated Press.

Even before this perceived slight, the Games were a sore spot for the Ladins of Cortina.

The 1956 Olympics went a long way toward propelling the once-Ladin majority town into a luxury resort replete with luxury fashion boutiques. Today, Ladins struggle to hang on to inherited property due to the increased value and the corresponding inheritance tax. Many young Ladin families move away — tearing at the cultural fabric.

At the official Olympic events, both in Cortina before the Games begin, Ladins will enjoy just two appearances.

A pair in traditional dress were on hand for the arrival of the Olympic torch on Monday, invited by the town. However, they didn't appear in any images shared by the local organizing committee. And before the Olympic opening ceremony, a small group of costumed Ladins will parade through Cortina — footage that will not be broadcast with the main ceremony, which will reach millions across the globe, officials told the AP.

"It's really not much. Yes, there will be someone in our costume, our costumes will be seen,'' said Zardini, the president of Cortina's Ladin association. “We had other goals, to highlight that we are a linguistic minority and to explain our culture, but that is not the case.”

That left Ladins to find other ways to raise their own profile.

Zardini is handing out Ladin flags — their azure, white and green colors representing the sky, snow and meadows of their mountain landscapes — to anyone wishing to display one during the Games. Her initiative has spread to neighboring South Tyrol and Trentino provinces.

“It isn’t so much a protest as a welcome, so visitors realize that a people living here speaks a certain language and has its own traditions,” she said. “That is our intention. And then, some have of course displayed it in protest.”

An umbrella group for six Ladin communities has prepared mini-dictionaries of Ladin terms translated into five languages for Olympic visitors, its president, Roland Verra, told the AP.

“Nief” means snow and, for the more adventurous, Winter Games is “Juesc Olimpics da d’ivern.”

The group, the General Ladin Union of the Dolomites, also produced a video in Ladin, with English subtitles, explaining the Ladins' history — from Roman conquest to Germanic invaders, the Napoleonic wars, up to 1919, when their region became part of Italy. It will be shown on a loop in front of Cortina's Town Hall.

In Trentino, Ladins are preparing an event featuring Ladin music and literature, and hoping tourists turn up.

“This is a great opportunity to represent the ancient legends that would certainly be very well seen, very spectacular,” Verra said.

FILE- Clouds hang over the 'Seceda' Dolomites mountain, 2519 meters, near Ortisei val Gardena, (St. Ulrich in Groeden) in northern Italian province of South Tyrol, Italy, June 28, 2021. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader, File)

A tourists signboard written in Ladin language, Italian and German is seen in San Vigilio di Marebbe, northern Italy, Monday, Jan. 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Nicole Winfield)

The Runcac chapel is seen in San Vigilio di Marebbe, northern Italy, Monday, Jan. 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Nicole Winfield)

Jasmine Feuchter poses for a photo in a traditional craft shop in San Vigilio di Marebbe, northern Italy, Monday, Jan. 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Nicole Winfield)

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — French President Emmanuel Macron and South Korean President Lee Jae Myung agreed Friday to work together to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz and ease global economic uncertainties caused by the war in the Middle East.

Their summit in Seoul came as U.S. President Donald Trump slammed allies for not supporting the U.S. and Israeli war against Iran. Macron was making his first visit to South Korea since taking office in 2017, as part of an Asian tour that already has taken him to Japan.

Macron told Lee at the start of the meeting that the two countries can play a role in helping to stabilize the situation in the Middle East, including Iran’s chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz, which has unleashed shock on global energy markets.

At a joint televised briefing afterward, Macron underscored the need for France and South Korea to cooperate to help reopen the strait and deescalate Middle East animosities, while Lee said the two affirmed “their resolves to cooperate to secure the safe shipping route in the Strait of Hormuz.”

The two leaders did not take questions and did not elaborate on how they would help reopen the strait — the narrow waterway between Iran and Oman through which about one-fifth of the world’s oil usually passes.

“We need to clearly define, at the international level, the conditions for a process to ease the crisis and conflict in the Middle East,” Macron said. “We need to ensure that the Strait of Hormuz is reopened.”

Lee said he and Macron agreed to expand cooperation in technology, energy and other areas. South Korean and French officials also signed agreements to cooperate on nuclear fuel supply chains, jointly invest in an offshore wind project in southern South Korea and to collaborate on critical minerals. South Korea has moved to increase output at its nuclear reactors to mitigate the energy crunch and Lee has also called for a faster transition to renewable energy, saying the war has exposed the country’s heavy reliance on fossil fuel imports.

Macron’s Asia trip comes as Trump has ramped up his frustration with allies. In a speech Wednesday, Trump said Americans “don’t need” the strait but the countries who do “must grab it and cherish it.”

In an earlier Easter event at the White House, Trump called for his allies in Asia and China to get involved in reopening the waterway.

“Let South Korea, you know, we only have 45,000 soldiers in harm’s way over there, right next to a nuclear force — let South Korea do it,” Trump said. “Let Japan do it. They get 90% of their oil from the strait. Let China do it.”

The United States stations about 28,000 troops in South Korea, not the 45,000 stated by Trump. The U.S. troops’ deployment in South Korea is meant to deter potential aggressions from North Korea.

Macron has said reopening the Strait of Hormuz through a military operation is unrealistic.

South Korean officials have said they are in contact with Washington on the issue and that Seoul isn’t considering paying Iran transit fees to secure fuel shipments through the strait.

French President Emmanuel Macron, front left, his wife Brigitte Macron, back center, and South Korean President Lee Jae Myung, front right, and his wife Kim Hea Kyung, right, attend the welcome ceremony at the presidential Blue House in Seoul Friday, April 3, 2026. (Jung Yeon-je /Pool Photo via AP)

French President Emmanuel Macron, center, his wife Brigitte Macron, left, and South Korean President Lee Jae Myung, right, and his wife Kim Hea Kyung, second left, attend the welcome ceremony at the presidential Blue House in Seoul Friday, April 3, 2026. (Jung Yeon-je /Pool Photo via AP)

French President Emmanuel Macron, second left, talks with South Korean President Lee Jae Myung, second right, during their meeting at the Blue House in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, April 3, 2026. (Jung Yeon-je/Pool Photo via AP)

French President Emmanuel Macron shakes hands with South Korean President Lee Jae Myung during their meeting at the Blue House in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, April 3, 2026. (Jung Yeon-je/Pool Photo via AP)