BEIRUT (AP) — FIFA President Gianni Infantino received a Lebanese passport at the Interior Ministry in Beirut on Monday, months after he was granted citizenship by the country’s president.
Infantino, who is married to Lebanese citizen Lina al-Ashkar, thanked President Joseph Aoun at a meeting at the Interior Ministry where Infantino filed documents and had a photograph and fingerprints taken before being handed his new blue Lebanese passport.
Infantino also has citizenship in Italy and Switzerland.
“I’m very proud and very happy to be here in Beirut at the Ministry of Interior to finally get my Lebanese passport,” Infantino said in a video carried by local TV stations. “I love Lebanon."
Lebanese women normally cannot pass their citizenship to their foreign husbands and children under Lebanese law. But Aoun made and exception for Infantino and granted him and his family members citizenship.
Lebanese men married to foreign women automatically pass their nationality to their children, while their wives become eligible for citizenship after being married for a certain period of time.
FIFA is the international soccer governing body.
In this photo released by the Lebanese Presidency press office, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, centre right, stands next to FIFA President Gianni Infantino, centre left, with members of his family, at the presidential palace in Baabda east of Beirut, Lebanon, Monday, Feb. 16, 2026. (Lebanese Presidency press office via AP)
MILAN (AP) — Jordan Cowan hoists his camera mount and glides across the Olympic rink as figure skating competitors warm up and, later, take their bows. Dressed in an ice-white tuxedo, he is as inconspicuous as possible.
The former U.S. competitive ice dancer is the first camera operator on figure skating ice in Olympic history, capturing intimate moments that the overhead or sideboard cameras cannot. While he isn’t on the ice during the routines, Cowan skates backward after each program to record up close what is often a raw moment of pure joy or disappointment for broadcast globally to viewers at home and on big screens for the arena spectators.
“To be the first person out on the ice at the end of their performance is such a privilege, and I definitely want them to feel their feelings,″ Cowan said in an interview before the pairs short program on Sunday. “The ice is a sacred place for a skater.”
At no moment during these Games were the contrasting emotions starker and Cowan’s job more delicate than after American skater Ilia Malinin’s two free program skates.
The 21-year-old punched excitedly at Cowan’s camera after he aced his long program in the team competition, helping Team USA clinch the gold medal. After Malinin botched his final free in the singles competition, Cowan kept his distance as the skater crumbled into a grimace of abject disappointment.
“I’m there to tell the audience, ‘It’s going to be OK, he’s still here.’ You know, you finish a program, you’re still alive. There’ll be another day. To see Ilia’s emotion really is just part of his story,” Cowan said.
While on-ice cameras have long been part of speed skating and hockey, Cowan has helped create the niche for figure skating.
After retiring from competitive skating in 2011, he worked in ballroom dancing and was inspired by how television motivated amateurs to learn new dances. He wanted the same for skating and so in 2018 he started his company, On Ice Perspectives, since when he has since been creating viral video moments from all levels of figure skating across his social media platforms.
At the Milan Cortina Winter Games he is working for the Olympic Broadcasting Services, which provides footage to national broadcasting rights holders. He has filmed three U.S. Championships, the 2021 world exhibition gala, and ice shows internationally.
Cowan loves when skaters engage with him as they leave the ice. Many realize he has a microphone and send messages to loved ones. They regularly make heart signs with their hands.
“For that brief window at the end of the program, when you get to take in the audience by yourself, by having this silent camera slowly available to you, it gives a special moment that we have never been able to capture before,'' he said.
Cowan trains with Pilates and yoga to handle the camera while matching athletes’ speed. He has designed his own rig, starting with a light-weight steady camera mounted on an electronic stabilized gimbal, maintaining a level horizon no matter how much wind he catches. He’s added manual focus, cinema zoom and wireless transmission.
Besides the skate-on and skate-off moments during competition, he is also on the ice for the medals ceremonies and will be there for the closing gala when the top competitors perform their crowd-pleasing signature moves.
The gala is a unique challenge, as he will have to read their moves to both stay out of their way and capture the moment. It’s a skill that competitive skaters pick up from training alongside teammates and competitors.
His skating abilities and familiarity with the athletes and their programs make it work. And to blend into the icy background as much as possible, Cowan has been experimenting with both gray and white skating looks.
“I’ve trained myself to be able to follow skaters without knowing the choreography,” he said. “They know they don’t have to look out for me, and I’m going to do everything I can to stay out of their way because safety is my number one priority. The perfect compliment I get is when the skaters say they didn’t even realize I was out there.”
Jordan Cowan operates the steadicam before the pairs figure skating short program at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Sunday, Feb. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)
Jordan Cowan operates the steadicam before the pairs figure skating short program at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Sunday, Feb. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis)
Jordan Cowan operates the steadicam before the pairs figure skating short program at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Sunday, Feb. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis)
Jordan Cowan operates the steadicam before the pairs figure skating short program at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Sunday, Feb. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis)
