CORTINA D'AMPEZZO, Italy (AP) — Curling could not have a more fitting host city for the upcoming Olympics than Cortina d’Ampezzo.
The town in the Dolomites is home to Italy’s first curling gold medalist, defending mixed doubles champion Stefania Constantini. And Mayor Gianluca Lorenzi is a former member of Italy’s national team — and the son of the sport’s founding father in Italy.
“I’m certainly going to have a reserved seat for every day of the competition,” Lorenzi said in a recent interview with The Associated Press, inferring that he would rather be at the curling venue than welcoming the various heads of state and VIPs expected in Cortina during the games.
Add in that the venue to be used for curling at the Feb. 6-22 Milan Cortina Winter Games will be the wooden arena that hosted the opening and closing ceremonies of the 1956 Olympics in Cortina and was also used for a scene in the James Bond film “For Your Eyes Only,” and it’s clear that spectators are in for something special.
“In Cortina, everybody (has) tried curling at least once,” Constantini said.
Constantini’s mother, Monica Dalus, is a member of Cortina’s city council.
“Whenever Stefi is competing, we message each other to keep track of her,” the mayor said of Dalus.
Constantini’s status makes her a logical choice to be one of Italy’s unprecedented four flag bearers for the part of the opening ceremony that will be held in Cortina.
Only she doesn’t see it that way. Because at 26, Constantini is still relatively young for a curler.
“I’m still at the start of my career and I’ve got many more goals that I want to achieve. There are many athletes who are further along in their careers, who have already won a ton and provided Italy with amazing emotions. So maybe they deserve this great honor,” Constantini told the AP.
Still, that hasn’t stopped Italian media from speculating that Constantini and Amos Mosaner, her winning mixed doubles partner from the 2022 Beijing Games, will get the honor.
While the main opening ceremony is slated for the San Siro soccer stadium in Milan on Feb. 6, there will also be a smaller event that Friday evening in Cortina, which will also host women's Alpine skiing and sliding events during the games. And the International Olympic Committee has authorized Italy to have a total of four flag bearers — two in Milan and two in Cortina with one man and one woman in each location.
“Of course, it would be a huge honor,” Constantini said. “But we haven’t heard anything yet.”
Right up until her and Mosaner’s golden performance in Beijing, Constantini also had a very typical day job in downtown Cortina.
She was a saleswoman in The North Face store on the pedestrian-only Corso Italia — a job she kept until a month before the Beijing Games.
“I had a double life back then,” Constantini said. “While I was working in the store, I was also working on qualifying for the Olympics.”
The victory with Mosaner made Constantini become Cortina’s first Olympic champion since bobsledder Eugenio Monti swept the two-man and four-man titles at the 1968 Grenoble Games.
Cortina’s controversial sliding center is named for Monti.
Constantini and Mosaner then added to their status as the pairing to beat in mixed when they defeated Scotland — the country where curling originated — in the final of this year's world championships.
“Competing at home in Cortina,” Constantini said, “will be the cherry on top of the cake.”
Andrew Dampf is at https://x.com/AndrewDampf
AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics
FILE -Italy's Stefania Constantini, looks at her gold medal, during the awards ceremony for the mixed doubles curling match against Norway, in the curling venue, at the 2022 Winter Olympics, Feb. 8, 2022, in Beijing. (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty), File)
FILE -Stefania Constantini, right, and Amos Mosaner, of Italy compete during the mixed doubles gold medals curling match against Noway at the Beijing Winter Olympics, Feb. 8, 2022, in Beijing. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson), File)
FILE -Italy's Stefania Constantini, directs her team mate, during the mixed doubles curling match against Sweden, at the 2022 Winter Olympics, Feb. 6, 2022, in Beijing. (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty, File)
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran responded to U.S. President Donald Trump’s address to Americans on the war with new missile attacks targeting Israel and the Gulf Arab states Thursday, underlining Tehran’s insistence that it rejected Washington’s outreach for a ceasefire while maintaining its grip on the Strait of Hormuz.
Britain planned to hold a call Thursday with nearly three dozen countries about how to reopen the strait, through which 20% of all oil and natural gas traded passes in peacetime. The 35 countries, including all G7 industrialized democracies except the U.S., as well as the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, signed a declaration last month demanding Iran stop blocking the strait. The call will discuss “diplomatic and political measures” that could restore shipping once the fighting is over.
Washington has insisted that Iran allow ships to freely transit the strait, but Trump this week has said it is not up to the U.S. to force it, and in his address encouraged countries that receive oil through Hormuz to “build some delayed courage” and go “take it.”
In his address, Trump said the U.S. would hit Iran “extremely hard over the next two to three weeks,” while also insisting American “core strategic objectives are nearing completion.”
Iran's military said defiantly on Thursday that its armament facilities are hidden and will never be reached by Israeli or American attacks.
“The centers you think you have targeted are insignificant,” said Lt. Col. Ebrahim Zolfaghari, a spokesman for the Iranian military’s Khatam Al-Anbiya Central Headquarters.
Just before Trump began his nearly 20-minute address on Wednesday, explosions were heard in Dubai as air defenses worked to intercept an Iranian missile barrage. Less than a half hour after the president was done, Israel said its military was working to intercept incoming missiles.
Sirens sounded in Bahrain, home to the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet, immediately after the speech.
Following a joint statement in March condemning Iranian attacks on unarmed commercial vessels that called upon Iran to “cease immediately its threats, laying of mines, drone and missile attacks and other attempts to block the strait,” the 35 signatories were to hold a virtual meeting Thursday hosted by British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper.
Though the oil and gas that typically transits the Strait of Hormuz primarily is sold to Asian nations, Japan and South Korea were the only two countries from the region that were joining.
“Trump’s message was that the United States can sustain its own economic and energy ecosystem, while countries dependent on regional exports will either have to buy from the United States or manage the Strait themselves,” the New York-based Soufan Center think tank wrote after the address.
“While Trump explicitly thanked U.S. allies in the Persian Gulf for their cooperation and allyship, an expedited U.S. withdrawal without securing the strait will leave many of these countries, whose economies are dependent on energy exports, in the lurch.”
No country appears willing to try and open the strait by force while the war is raging. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the group “will assess all viable diplomatic and political measures we can take to restore freedom of navigation, guarantee the safety of trapped ships and seafarers and to resume the movement of vital commodities.”
Bahrain, which now holds the presidency of the United Nations Security Council, has been working to get the world body to address the crisis as well.
Though Iran has allowed a trickle of ships through the strait, it remains largely closed. Iran has also been repeatedly attacking Gulf Arab energy infrastructure, sending oil prices skyrocketing and giving rise to broader economic problems worldwide.
Following Trump's speech, Brent crude, the international standard, rose again and was at $108 in early spot trading, up nearly 50% from Feb. 28 when Israel and the U.S. started the war with their attacks on Iran.
The rising energy prices and stock market jitters have been putting increasing domestic pressure on Trump, who used his address to offer a defense of the war while also suggesting it was close to winding down.
He acknowledged American service members who had been killed and said: “We are going to finish the job, and we’re going to finish it very fast. We’re getting very close.”
The U.S. has presented Iran with a 15-point plan for a ceasefire, but Trump didn’t say anything about the diplomatic efforts or bring up his April 6 deadline for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz or face severe retaliation from the U.S.
More than 1,900 people have been killed in Iran during the war, while 19 have been reported dead in Israel. More than two dozen people have died in Gulf states and the occupied West Bank, while 13 U.S. service members have been killed.
More than 1,200 people have been killed in Lebanon and more than 1 million displaced, according to authorities. Ten Israeli soldiers have also died there.
Weissert reported from Washington and Rising reported from Bangkok.
The Indian flagged LPG carrier Jag Vasant transporting liquefied petroleum gas, is seen at the Mumbai Port in Mumbai, India, after it arrived clearing the Strait of Hormuz, Wednesday, April 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool)
President Donald Trump speaks about the Iran war from the Cross Hall of the White House on Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Pool)
President Donald Trump walks from the Blue Room to speak about the Iran war from the Cross Hall of the White House on Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Pool)
President Donald Trump speaks about the Iran war from the Cross Hall of the White House on Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Pool)
President Donald Trump speaks about the Iran war from the Cross Hall of the White House on Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Pool)
