By HOWARD FENDRICH, AP National Writer

MILWAUKEE (AP) — Jordan Stolz appreciates that people liken what he will be trying to do at the Milan Cortina Winter Games to Eric Heiden’s record five speedskating gold medals at Lake Placid in 1980.

Who wouldn’t be flattered?

“It’s a cool comparison because not everybody is able to have that,” Stolz, a 21-year-old from Wisconsin, said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Soft-spoken yet confident, Stolz is positioned to be one of the faces of these Olympics, which begin Feb. 6. Not sure? Check out NBC’s ads.

He is quick to point out that his bid for golds in four events — and maybe, just maybe, five — is not the same as what Heiden accomplished nearly 50 years ago by becoming the only person in the sport to win the 500, 1,000, 1,500, 5,000 and 10,000 meters at one Games.

“It’s really not an exact comparison,” said Stolz, who qualified for the three shortest individual events. “If I can have perfect races, I think I have the best chances out of a lot of people to win gold.”

Folks who spend a lot of time around Stolz tend to agree that is realistic.

“He’s a once-in-a-generation skater,” said Emery Lehman, a 2022 bronze medalist for the U.S. in team pursuit. “I was talking to one of the older skaters the other day about Heiden doing this stuff 40-50 years ago. It’s similar in that people are really in awe.”

U.S. Speedskating national team coach Ryan Shimabukuro put it in simple terms.

“He’s the best skater in the world,” Shimabukuro said. “No doubt about that.”

Why the Dutch call Stolz ‘Straaljager’

He is a two-time world champion at all three of his main distances, the 500, 1,000 and 1,500. The world record-holder in the 1,000. Owner of an 18-race winning streak in the past.

It’s why the Dutch, historically dominant at speedskating, nicknamed him “Straaljager” (“Fighter Jet”). Shimabukuro calls him “Champ.”

At a pair of World Cup stops in December, Stolz went 7-0, which U.S. Speedskating executive director Ted Morris said, “sent a really powerful message; you can see it in those skaters’ eyes, like, ‘What just happened? I’m not close anymore.’”

That thought first entered minds when Stolz, still a teen, swept those three races at the 2023 single-distance championships. A year earlier, making his Olympics debut in Beijing, Stolz was 13th in the 500 and 14th in the 1,000.

This time, in addition to those distances and the 1,500, which all are contested in 1-on-1 heats, he also will enter the mass start, a race covering 6,400 meters with a pack of entrants. And there is a chance Stolz could be in a fifth event: team pursuit, in which three teammates do 3,200 meters together.

“It’s going to be more of an in-the-moment thing,” Stolz said about entering that, too.

The U.S. men hold the world record and are favored for gold. Their usual trio is Lehman, Ethan Cepuran and Casey Dawson, but Stolz could participate in a round. As with relay events in athletics or swimming, someone in any heat, even if not the final, earns the same medal as the rest of the squad.

His coach, Bob Corby, said Stolz could join that event in Milan “if somebody gets sick or somebody gets injured.”

From backyard ice to the Olympics

The Stolz origin story is the stuff of movies.

Jordan, then 5, and his sister, Hannah, then 7, fell in love with skating by watching American short track star Apolo Ohno win some of his eight career Olympic medals during the 2010 Vancouver Games. Their father, Dirk, cleared snow off a frozen pond in their backyard so they could learn to skate. Their mother, Jane, found used skates at a nearby club.

“It’s a talent. It’s a gift. And he’s driven to continue to improve,” Jane said of her son. “A lot of people are more into, ‘Let’s see who I can beat.’ No, he just likes to keep getting better.”

And now Jordan Stolz heads to his second Winter Games with all eyes on him.

Will that affect Stolz?

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“I really don’t think he cares,” Corby said. “That whole situation is pretty much what’s happened for the last three years, and especially the last three months.”

Asked the same question while sitting on a bench during the U.S. Olympic trials in early January, Stolz shrugged.

His answer arrived in almost a whisper.

“As long as nothing gets in the way, then I should be fine,” Stolz said. “I’ve had a lot of high-pressure races, I guess you could say, so I don’t think that’s that big of an issue.”

AP Winter Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics

By EDDIE PELLS

COPPER MOUNTAIN, Colo. (AP) — Chloe Kim’s third run to the Olympics started with the usual questions: How will she handle the pressure? Can she enjoy the journey? How does being famous elevate or diminish the experience? And, of course, will she win her third straight gold medal?

Now, comes one that nobody saw coming: Will America’s best snowboarder, one of the major attractions of next month’s Milan Cortina Games, even make it to the halfpipe? If she does, will she be anywhere near 100%?

A shoulder injury during training has turned the buildup to the Olympics into a scramble for the 25-year-old Kim, whose catalog of tricks outclasses everything else in this high-risk, high-reward sport.

“Obviously, I’m really disappointed that I can’t snowboard until right before the Olympics, which is going to be hard,” Kim said in a recent update on Jan. 13, four weeks before the start of the women’s halfpipe contest. “I haven’t gotten nearly the amount of reps that I would have liked, but that’s OK.”

The question of Kim’s health will hover over the one of the marquee contests of the Olymipcs and over the result itself.

If she wins, it will mark another stunning accomplishment for the California kid who took over the halfpipe 10 years ago — a smiling 15-year old who loved the mall, her dog Reese and the first day of any month because that’s when her mom paid out her allowance.

If she doesn’t — and someone like Gaon Choi of Korea or Sena Tomita of Japan wins — well, that might be chalked up to the best snowboarder not being at full strength.

“To some level, I think (the shoulder) is something that will be in her mind if she does decide to compete,” said Shaun White, the three-time gold medalist who dealt with big injuries in the lead-up to his last two Games. “But, also, she’s in a league of her own trick-wise.”

Kim knows the Olympics are the gold standard of her sport

For everything she has accomplished — the record eight Winter X Games golds, the three world championship titles and the tricks she does that nobody else even attempts — the Olympic gold medal is the benchmark in this sport. For Kim, gearing up to take her game up another notch every four years makes the mental gymnastics almost as difficult as the physical ones.

It’s a reality that a few years ago forced her to restart her search for joy in a sport that, over time, has turned into something different than fun and games.

FILE- United States’ Chloe Kim reacts during the women’s halfpipe finals at the 2022 Winter Olympics, Feb. 10, 2022, in Zhangjiakou, China. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man, File)

“When you have the level of fame that she has reached, it gets to be a lot more like a job,” said her longtime coach, Rick Bower. “Some of that love you had when you were younger gets lost a little bit. One of the biggest things she’s worked on over the last few years is just finding that spark of why she actually does this.”

Scattered among her dozens of social-media posts that show her peddling products, heading to the gym, talking about her driving acumen and making matcha was a revealing take on why she keeps going out there.

“I feel like I love the adrenaline and the pressure I feel when I am snowboarding,” she said. “I find it very rewarding, too. There’s nothing that can compete with the feeling of accomplishing something you once thought was impossible, and pushing yourself and being able to see the result of all your hard work.”

Her career is full of those moments.

Last January, Kim became the first woman to land a double-cork 1080 in a competition (that’s two head-over-heels flips while spinning 360 degrees).

FILE – Chloe Kim, of the United States, runs the course during the women’s halfpipe qualifying at Phoenix Snow Park at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, Feb. 12, 2018. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung, File)

She is approaching the 10th anniversary of the date when she became the first woman to do back-to-back 1080s, three spins in one jump above the pipe.

In 2024, during a victory lap at the Winter X Games, she added a half spin to her 1080 and became the first woman to pull off a 1260.

She had tried, and failed, to pull off a 1260 at the 2022 Olympics in China. In a world that only Kim and a few others can understand, that had no impact on her winning the gold medal — she did that easily with her second-best run — but made all the difference in how she viewed the day.

“It’s unfair to be expected to be perfect,” she said that day, “and I’m not perfect in every way.”

More than the gold medal, Kim said, she found her joy in the quest for progression, the favorite word of any great snowboarder. Nobody has progressed women’s snowboarding more than she has over the past decade.

“You’re going to see someone designing a whole new run that’s never been done before,” said Kelly Clark, the 2002 Olympic gold medalist who befriended Kim when she was starting out. “There’s a creativity and individual expression that makes it so cool.”

Risks on the halfpipe are mental as much as physical

Creativity and progression come with risks. The best, after all, are supposed to win. By not playing it safe, Kim puts that in jeopardy. Clark, who has Olympic gold and two bronze, is among the rare few who can relate to what the current Olympic champion is feeling.

FILE – Chloe Kim, of the United States, jumps during the women’s halfpipe finals at Phoenix Snow Park at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, on Feb. 13, 2018. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull, File)

“I didn’t find it very sustainable when you did things for external purposes,” she said. “If you did things just because it was an Olympic year, I usually found that involved a lot more pressure.”

If these musings sound familiar — about Kim struggling with fame, struggling to rekindle her love of snowboarding, struggling with it all — they are. In 2018, about a month after winning her first gold, she conceded fame was different from what she imagined.

It included everything from paparazzi following her, to fans watching her eat in restaurants to an ugly spate of anti-Asian trolling that has been a steady, disturbing through-line over the career of a California native whose parents are Korean.

Heading into 2022, Kim opened up about her own mental-health challenges, especially in the furor of the pandemic. The disease originated in China, which led to a backlash against people of Asian heritage.

“I experience hate on a daily basis,” Kim wrote in a 2021 essay published on ESPN.

FILE – Gold medal winner Chloe Kim, of the United States, celebrates during the venue ceremony for the women’s halfpipe at the 2022 Winter Olympics, Feb. 10, 2022, in Zhangjiakou, China. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man, File)

Her feelings heading into these Olympics might have been summed up best in one of her rare interviews: “I just want to go back to loving it again,” she told Harper’s Bazaar last summer.

Next up, Kim goes for history and three straight gold medals

Now, the question is: Does she have to win to love it? Also, what will it take to win, especially with the calculus changed because of the injury?

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Bower believes Choi and Tomita have tricks that will prompt Kim to bring more than her “B” game to win.

As Italy approaches, that’s what pressure feels like for an adrenaline junkie who likes to create art on the mountain.

“She goes to an event, she’s expected to win,” Bower said. “That’s a very overwhelming proposition for anybody. But she’s done a very good job of focusing on what makes her excited to strap on a snowboard.”

AP Winter Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics

BOHEMIA, N.Y. (AP) — A New York school district is “erasing its Native American heritage” and violating civil rights law by changing its team name from the “Thunderbirds” to the “T-Birds,” federal education officials say.

The U.S. Department of Education said Thursday that the Connetquot Central School District can voluntarily resolve the federal law violation by restoring the “rightful” Thunderbirds’ name.

The Long Island district, like others in the state, changed its team name in order to comply with state regulations banning Native American sports names and mascots.

But federal education officials argue the state mandate violates civil rights law because it allows schools to continue using names derived from other racial or ethnic groups, such as the “Dutchmen” and “Huguenots.”

“We will not allow ideologues to decide that some mascots based on national origin are acceptable while others are banned,” said Kimberly Richey, who heads the Education Department’s civil rights office. “The Trump Administration will not relent in ensuring that every community is treated equally under the law.”

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The school district said it is reviewing the federal finding, but state education officials excoriated it, saying the conclusion “makes a mockery” of the nation’s civil rights laws.

“USDOE has offered no explanation as to whose civil rights were violated by changing a team name from Thunderbirds to T-birds,” JP O’Hare, spokesperson for the agency, said in a statement Friday. “NYSED remains committed to ending the use of harmful, outdated, and offensive depictions of Indigenous people.”

The state education department and the school district reached an agreement last year in which Connetquot would be allowed to use the “T-Birds” name and related imagery such as an eagle, thunderbolt or lightning bolt, in exchange for dropping its legal challenge to the state’s Native American mascot ban.

Native American advocates say the “Thunderbird” is a mythical creature often depicted as a powerful spirit and benevolent protector in many indigenous traditions.

By JENNIFER McDERMOTT and PAT GRAHAM

Davide Cerato will play a major role in skiing and snowboarding events at the upcoming Olympics, but he won’t be competing.

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The Italian snowmaking expert is responsible for perfecting several of the courses that will feature in the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Games, and he takes his job seriously.

“It’s the most important race of their life,” Cerato said. “Our duty is to give them the best, to deliver the best courses where they can perform their best after training so hard.”

Cerato oversees operations at venues where new snowmaking systems were installed, including in Bormio for Alpine ski racing and ski mountaineering, and in Livigno for freestyle skiing and snowboarding events. He has been working with the International Ski and Snowboard Federation and the International Olympic Committee since the 2014 Sochi Olympics.

These days, manufactured snow — “technical snow” as Cerato calls it — is a way of life in ski racing, so much so that Olympic athletes don’t think twice about competing on it. Above all else, they want a course that will hold up over multiple training runs and the races themselves without becoming too mushy or rutted.

Mother Nature can’t always provide for that, and with climate change affecting winter sports in particular, snowmaking has become essential.

New reservoirs and snow guns

The organizing committee estimates the Games will need roughly 250 million gallons of water, the equivalent of nearly 380 Olympic swimming pools, for snowmaking. Cerato oversaw the work to carve out new high-elevation water reservoirs to store it.

At the Livigno Snow Park, they built a basin capable of holding about 53 million gallons of water. It’s now one of the biggest reservoirs on the Italian side of the Alps, Cerato said. They added more than 50 snow guns there to produce about 211 million gallons of snow in roughly 300 hours.

FILE – This photo shows the snowboarding and freestyle skiing events which will take place during the upcoming Milan Cortina Winter Olympics in Livigno, Italy, Saturday, Dec. 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Gabriele Facciotti, File)

In Bormio, Cerato said they constructed a lake at an elevation of 2,515 yards to hold 23 million gallons of water. They also added 75 snow guns for Alpine skiing and ski mountaineering.

“We brought the Bormio slope to a new level,” he said, comparing it to a “Ferrari with new gears.”

Ensuring fair, safe courses

By making snow, organizers can control a slope’s quality and hardness, preparing it according to FIS requirements and ensuring consistent conditions, Cerato said.

He said it’s easier to work with technical snow because it’s compact and is safer because it doesn’t deteriorate as quickly, whereas natural snow requires more work. They can inject water deep into the snowpack, which will freeze and create a more stable race surface.

“We can deliver better, safer and fair courses,” he said. “That is the difference — a fair course from bib No. 1 to bib No. 50.”

FILE – Olympic rings are displayed in the snow at the Stelvio Ski Center, venue for the alpine ski and ski mountaineering disciplines at the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Olympics in Bormio, Italy, Jan. 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno, File)

Using snowmaking sensor technology

Cerato and his team are using state-of-the-art sensors to monitor the snow depth. If there’s a gap, snow guns go to work. If there’s too much, they are turned off.

“It automatically adjusts everything, each snow gun, so you can control with just one person sitting in the office, all the mountain,” Cerato said.

In Bormio, snow groomers are also equipped with GPS systems to help monitor the snow quality and levels, saving time, energy and water.

The snow groomer knows exactly where to push the snow and how much snow is needed. And at the same time, “you produce the minimum amount of snow that you need,” Cerato said. “This is a powerful tool.”

Preparing a slope for elite competition isn’t the same as doing it for commercial use. For the latter, natural snow is precious, he said. Personally, he prefers skiing in powder.

“I was born on the mountain,” he said. “I love snow.”

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