Winter Olympics kick off in Milan as Northeast Ohio athletes take the stage

Driving the news: The opening ceremony begins at 2pm Friday and will be broadcast on NBC and Peacock.

• NBC will broadcast an encore of the ceremony at 8pm ET.

Yes, but: Competition is already underway. Early rounds for events like curling, snowboarding, women's hockey and a few others began Wednesday.

• The first medal event, men's downhill skiing, takes place on Saturday.

Zoom in: Northeast Ohio natives competing include Cleveland Heights native Laila Edwards, the first Black woman to compete for a U.S. women's ice hockey team at the Olympics.

• There's Rocky River snowboarder Redmond Gerard, who won the gold medal in men's slopestyle at the 2018 games in Pyeongchang.
• The Cleveland area is well represented in freestyle skiing with Brecksville's Kyra Dossa and Chagrin Falls' Derek Krueger.

Also: Other athletes with Northeast Ohio ties include men's hockey star and East Palestine native J.T. Miller, and curler Ben Richardson, whose family resides in North Royalton.

• Richardson's family will make the trip to Milan after a GoFundMe campaign went viral.

The big picture: The Winter Games will feature 116 total medal events across 16 different sports, with the closing ceremony set for Feb. 22.

• Among the new events debuting are ski mountaineering, women's doubles luge, mixed-team skeleton and women's large hill ski jumping.

If you go: The W Sports Bar is hosting a watch party for the U.S. women's hockey team's game against Canada at 2:10pm Feb. 10.