ROME (AP) — Olympic swimming champion Gregorio Paltrinieri and fellow Summer athletes started off the torch relay for the Milan Cortina Winter Games on Saturday — which marked exactly two months before the Feb. 6 opening ceremony.

Paltrinieri carried the sleek torch around the track of the statue-lined Stadio dei Marmi at the Foro Italico to begin a trek covering 12,000 kilometers (nearly 7,500 miles) that will wind its way through all 110 Italian provinces before reaching Milan’s San Siro Stadium for the opening ceremony.

“It’s a pleasure to be part of the Olympic movement movement, even if it’s Winter Olympics,” Paltrinieri said.

In all, there will be 10,001 torch bearers.

Giancarlo Peris, the final torch bearer from the 1960 Olympics in Rome, carried out the Olympic flame in

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