Angry Italians boo American athletes and JD Vance at Winter Olympics

Team USA and JD Vance were met with a chorus of boos as they arrived at the Winter Olympics opening ceremony on Friday night. 

Ahead of the Games getting underway this weekend, athletes from across the world took center stage as they paraded through the San Siro to greet eager spectators. 

While spirits were high throughout the event, when Team USA marched through the stadium, they were met with a chorus of boos from furious Italian fans inside. 

To make matters worse, the jeering only got louder when United States Vice President JD Vance was shown on screen following recent protests against the deployment of the US's Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents at the Olympics. 

Team USA were lead by flagbearers Erin Jackson, a speed skater, and Frankie del Luca, part of the nation's bobsleigh team, as they entered the stadium.

Despite the boos, both Team USA's athletes and JD Vance appeared in good spirits as they greeted the gathered fans in attendance. 

It didn't take long for fans watching at home to notice the boos and speak out on social media shortly after the opening ceremony came to a close. 

'Wowowowow Team USA getting booed during the opening ceremony parade. This is just an embarrassment. #Olympics2026,' one fan wrote on X. 

'Not the reaction I was expecting for team USA tbh,' another user said. 

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'team usa getting booed [crying emojis],' another fan wrote on the platform. 

One noticed: 'Lots of boos when JD Vance shown on big screen when Team USA enters stadium in opening cermony of @milanocortina26'.

It came amid an opening ceremony dogged by criticism after Mariah Carey appeared to lip-sync her way through her performance of classic Italian tune 'Volare'.

Taylor Swift also sent an unexpected good-luck message to athletes as the ceremony began. 

Prior to the Games, Winter Olympics chiefs were forced to issue an urgent plea to fans amid the presence of United States Vice President JD Vance.

Just days before the curtain-raiser, protestors swept through the streets of Milan, demonstrating the deployment of the US's ICE agent at the Olympics. 

The demonstrations occurred just days before Vance arrived in Italy to lead a high-profile delegation from Donald Trump's administration at the games. 

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In response, President Kirsty Coventry said: 'I hope that the opening ceremony is seen by everyone as an opportunity to be respectful of each other.

'No one is asking what country they come from or what religion. They are all just hanging out,' she added, via The Daily Beast. 

'It was a real opportunity to put into perspective how we could all be. And so, for me, I hope that the opening ceremony will do that and will be a reminder for everyone how we could be.'

The protest in Piazza XXV Aprile, a square named for the date of Italy's liberation from Nazi fascism in 1945, drew people from the left-leaning Democratic Party, the CGIL trade union confederation and the ANPI organizations that protect the memory of Italy's partisan resistance during World War II, along with many other people.

Organizers handed out plastic whistles, which participants blew as music blared from a van.

The protest was as much against the news that agents from a division of ICE would participate in security for the U.S. delegation as against what many of those present said they saw as creeping fascism in the United States.

'No thank you, from Minnesota to the world, at the side of anyone who fights for human rights,' read one banner.

'Never again means never again for anyone,' read another, and 'Ice only in Spritz,' a reference to a popular aperitif, read yet another.

Protester Silvana Grassi held a sign that read 'Ice = Gestapo'. She said the scenes of ICE agents in Minneapolis shooting and killing protesters and detaining children were deeply upsetting.

'It makes me want to cry to think of it,' Grassi said. 'It's too terrible. How did they elect such a terrible, evil man?'

Homeland Security Investigations, an ICE unit that focuses on cross-border crimes, frequently sends its officers to overseas events like the Olympics to assist with security.

The ICE arm at the forefront of the immigration crackdown in the U.S. is known as Enforcement and Removal Operations, and there is no indication its officers are being sent to Italy.

'Even if it's not the same ones, we don't want them here,' Grassi said.

Paolo Bortoletto, also holding a banner, was aware that the officers would have an investigative and not a street role.

Still, he said, 'We don't want them in our country. We are a peaceful country. We don't want fascists. It's their ideas that bother us.'

Meanwhile, elsewhere at the Winter Olympics opening ceremony, American singer Mariah Carey is receiving backlash for her apparent lip-syncing.

Carey donned a flowing white dress in the early portion of the event to mark the start of the 25th Olympic Winter Games.

However, her performance of the classic tune 'Volare' was lampooned on social media for what appeared to be the 55-year-old's poor attempt to fake her way through singing the tune.

Carey appeared to put little effort into her 'attempts' to reach the top of her vocal range and was seen, at times, to be moving her lips slower than what was being heard in the San Siro.

Almost instantly, social media began savaging the New York native for the lack of effort.

'I haven't seen a worse lip sync performance than this in years,' one upset user on X tweeted out while Carey was still on stage.

Meanwhile, prior to the opening ceremony beginning, Taylor Swift stunned viewers when she popped up on NBC to send a good luck message to the athletes competing.

Wearing a Team USA long-sleeve Ralph Lauren T-shirt, the music sensation said: 'I just wanted to send a message to all of the athletes who are competing in the Olympics.

'I just wanted to say thank you. Getting to learn new stories and see everything you've sacrificed and all your determination, hard work and passion. Everything that has gotten you to this point where you're so excellent at something is just really inspiring.

'I'm very grateful for everything you've done to get to this point in your life and grateful that you've all brought us along with you on this journey so we get to watch you do this.

'I just hope you have a wonderful Olympic games, wishing you all the best of luck and a safe journey and I hope this is an experience that you will cherish for the rest of your life.'