Mario Gargiulo, 89, was among the first of 18,000 volunteers to sign up and, on Sunday night, will take the stage at the closing ceremony with a starring role: the Games’ oldest volunteer.
This isn’t his first rodeo. In 1956, he traveled from Naples to see the Olympics in Cortina.
“I went to Cortina out of a sudden desire to do something out of the ordinary. Nobody wanted to come with me so I, fascinated by this new thing everybody was talking about, went alone,” he said.
Only able to afford a room without heat during the Winter Games, he went to sleep wearing every layer of clothing he’d brought. Gargiulo relished the chance to watch figure skating and speedskating up close.
He enjoyed Cortina so much that, after he married an American woman, they honeymooned there. He later enlisted in the U.S. Army and, after his promotion to captain, became a citizen. And he has earned the nickname “King of the Volunteers.”