Tiger's lost tooth in Cortina. Bode's 1-ski show in Bormio. Olympic Alpine slopes filled with tales

Tiger Woods' tooth might still be buried at the bottom of the Cortina downhill course ever since a wild day — and a record-breaking run — more than a decade ago by his girlfriend at the time, Lindsey Vonn.

A decade earlier, and mountains away, Bode Miller turned in a famous performance on only one ski down the feared Stelvio course in Bormio.

These two courses contain so much history, tradition and tales as the Olympics return to iconic venues known well on Alpine skiing's World Cup circuit. Downhill racing at the last three Winter Games — Sochi in 2014, Pyeongchang in 2018 and Beijing in 2022 — were held at completely new sites.

Women’s skiing at the Games will be on the Olympia delle Tofane course in Cortina d’Ampezzo, which has hosted the World Cup circuit’s signature races for decades. The Cortina course features a rhythmic track where racers can reach speeds hovering around 80 mph (130 km). Even James Bond made a famous trip down the slopes of Cortina when 007 out-skied villains in the 1981 movie “For Your Eyes Only.”

Men’s skiing will be held on the Stelvio in Bormio, which is known as the most physically demanding course on the World Cup circuit. It's usually held in late December, when the course is dark, icy and uncomfortably bumpy. In February, the sun figures to be peeking out, making the courage-testing downhill a little less daunting.

“It's so unique that we’re actually in a classic Alpine space for both of these events,” said retired American standout Ted Ligety, who won a giant slalom in Bormio in 2008. “It’s going to be cool.”

Cortina was the site where Vonn broke Annemarie Moser-Pröll’s 35-year-old World Cup wins record in 2015 with victory No. 63. Her record run was overshadowed by a surprise visitor that day wearing a mask featuring a skull design on it that concealed most of his face.

When Woods lowered the mask briefly and was photographed with one of his front teeth missing, attention quickly shifted to the gap in his smile.

Woods’ agent said that the tooth was knocked out by a video camera amid the “crush of photographers at the awards podium.” There was never any evidence that Woods was hit by a camera but the the tale of the tooth gained much more attention than Vonn’s achievement.

“I was disappointed that that was the main storyline,” Vonn told The Associated Press recently when asked to reflect back on the series of events. “It definitely distracted from the fact that I broke the win record. … Yeah, that was an interesting debacle.”

Now 41, Vonn is set to compete again in Cortina at her fifth Olympics. She's won a record 12 times at the venue.

At the 2005 world championships in Bormio, Miller swept the golds in the speed events of super-G and downhill and put on a show in the combined, too.

When Miller lost his left ski early in the downhill leg of what back then was a marathon-like three-run race, he continued down the bumpy Stelvio course for nearly two minutes, showing off remarkable balance, strength and athleticism on a single ski.

Daron Rahlves won silver behind Miller in the downhill and also a bronze in giant slalom. The Americans’ 1-2 finish in the downhill relegated Austrian standouts Michael Walchhofer and Fritz Strobl to third and fourth, respectively.

“It’s always nice to make the Austrians cry,” said Johno McBride, the current coach of the U.S. men’s speed team and also the coach back then. “It’s not easy to do, but that day we did.”

Miller and Rahlves celebrated their successes with fiery outfits: black shirts featuring a flame design on them.

“If we had one guy on the podium, everyone wore it. We were wearing those shirts a lot that season,” Rahlves said, adding that he still has his fiery top.

Overall, the 2005 worlds marked a breakout performance for the U.S. Ski Team.

Just up the road from Bormio in Santa Caterina di Valfurva, Julia Mancuso won two bronze medals and fellow 20-year-old Vonn — then known as Lindsey Kildow — had two fourth-place finishes.

At the 2021 world championships in Cortina, Mikaela Shiffrin, the World Cup's all-time wins leader, entered four events and came away with four medals.

Shiffrin’s Cortina memories also include the biggest downhill crash of her career in 2024, when she hit the safety netting at high speed. She hasn’t raced in downhill since then and likely won’t enter the event at the Olympics.

Cortina is also the resort where Vonn and Shiffrin finished on the podium together for the only time in their careers: Vonn was second and Shiffrin third in a World Cup downhill won by Sofia Goggia in 2018.

Goggia missed the 2021 worlds due to injury and will be aiming for home snow redemption at these games. She and Italian teammate Federica Brignone won World Cup races in Cortina on back-to-back days last season.

Brignone, the defending overall World Cup champion, is attempting to return from injury in time to compete at the Olympics.

The host Italians will also have a formidable contender on the men’s side: Dominik Paris holds the Bormio record with seven World Cup victories on the Stelvio.

When Cortina first hosted the Olympics in 1956, Austria's Toni Sailer swept gold in all three men’s events.

When Alberto Tomba clinched his only overall World Cup title at the 1995 finals in Bormio by winning a giant slalom, he celebrated the next day by racing in tight-fitting yellow shorts, tank top and tie.

More recently, the Stelvio has been the site of some major crashes, with French standout Cyprien Sarrazin among the casualties last season.

“The Stelvio,” reigning Olympic giant slalom champion Marco Odermatt of Switzerland said, “is like a constant fight for survival.”

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

FILE - World Cup overall winner Alberto Tomba salutes his fans wearing shorts and a tie before the prize-giving ceremony in Bormio, Italy, March 19, 1995. (AP Photo/Alessandro Trovati, File)

FILE - U.S. skier Bode Miller, left, sprays sparkling wine on Phil McNichol, head coach of the U.S. men's alpine ski team, as Daron Rahlves, center, smiles during a victory party in the American House in Bormio, Italy, Feb. 5, 2005. (AP Photo/Thomas Kienzle, File)

FILE - United States' Mikaela Shiffrin shows her bronze medal at the alpine ski World Championships in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, Feb. 20, 2021. (AP Photo/Giovanni Auletta, File)

FILE - Tiger Woods, left, and Lindsey Vonn walk in the finish area of an alpine ski, women's World Cup super-G, in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, Jan. 19, 2015. (AP Photo/Armando Trovati, File)

FILE - Bode Miller of the United States makes a turn on one ski during the Downhill portion of the Men's Combined at the World Alpine Ski Championships in Bormio, Italy, Feb. 3, 2005. (AP Photo/Diether Endlicher, File)

NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) — Former Cypriot President George Vassiliou, a successful businessman who helped to energize his divided island's economy and set it on the road to European Union membership, has died. He was 94.

Vassiliou died Wednesday after being hospitalized on Jan. 6 for a respiratory infection. Cyprus President Nikos Christodoulides praised Vassiliou as a leader who became synonymous with the country's economic prosperity, social progress and push toward modernization.

“Cyprus has lost a universal citizen who broadened our homeland's international imprint,” Christodoulides said in a written statement.

His wife Androulla, a lawyer who twice served as a European commissioner, posted on X in the early hours Wednesday that her companion of 59 years “slipped away quietly in our arms” in hospital.

“It's difficult to say farewell to a man who was a superb husband and father, a man full of kindness and love for the country and its people,” she wrote.

When he became president in 1988, Vassiliou lifted hopes that a peace deal with the island's breakaway Turkish Cypriots was possible after more than a decade of off-again, on-again talks. He swiftly relaunched stalled reunification negotiations with Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash, but they ended at an impasse that continues today.

Cyprus was split into an internationally recognized Greek-speaking south and a Turkish-speaking north in 1974, when Turkey invaded the island after a coup aimed at uniting it with Greece. A Turkish Cypriot declaration of independence nine years later was recognized only by Turkey.

During an interview in 1989, one year into his five-year term as president, Vassiliou said: "The only dangerous thing for the Cyprus issue is to remain ... in a vacuum, forgotten and with no one taking any interest."

But Vassiliou succeeded on many other fronts, using his skills as a successful entrepreneur to modernize and expand his county’s economy, even though he had been raised by parents who were pro-communist.

Vassiliou was born in Cyprus in 1931 to two doctors who were activists and volunteered their services to the communist forces during the civil war that engulfed Greece in the immediate aftermath of World War II.

With the defeat of the communists in Greece in 1949, the Vassiliou family moved to Hungary and later Uzbekistan.

George Vassiliou initially studied medicine in Geneva and Vienna, but he later switched to economics, earning a doctorate from the University of Economics in Budapest.

After a brief stint doing marketing in London, Vassiliou returned to Cyprus in 1962, and he began a successful business career that made him a millionaire. He founded the Middle East Market Research Bureau, a consultancy business that grew to have offices in 30 countries in the Middle East, South Africa, eastern and central Europe.

In 1987, Vassilou was elected president of Cyprus as an independent entrepreneur who also was supported by the island's powerful communist party AKEL, which his father had one been a prominent member of.

Vassiliou bucked the staid political culture of the time by making the presidency more accessible to the public and visiting government offices and schools. That prompted some criticism that he was turning the presidency into a marketing pulpit.

"I consider it the president’s obligation to come in contact with the civil service," Vassiliou told Greek state TV. "I call this communication with youth. Some call it marketing. ... I call it the proper execution of the president's mission."

He also pushed through key reforms, including imposing a sales tax while slashing income taxes, streamlining a cumbersome civil service, establishing the first Cyprus university, and abolishing a state monopoly in electronic media. To make sure the world better understood the Cyprus peace process, he widely expanded a network of press offices at Cypriot diplomatic missions.

Through his tenure, the island's per capita gross domestic product almost doubled, culminating in possibly his most notable achievement as president — applying for full membership to the European Union, a goal achieved 13 years later.

Vassiliou lost the presidency in 1993 to Glafcos Clerides, who appointed his rival as Cyprus' chief negotiator with the EU in 1998. A decade later, Vassiliou headed a Greek Cypriot team negotiating EU matters during reunification talks. He remained politically active, founding a party of his own and being elected to the Cypriot legislature in 1996.

He authored several books on EU issues and Cypriot politics; was a member of several international bodies, including the Shimon Peres Institute of Peace; and received honors and decorations from countries such as France, Italy, Austria, Portugal and Egypt.

Apart from his wife, Vassiliou is also survived by two daughters and a son.

FILE -Democratic Presidential Candidate Bill Clinton, left, meets with President George Vassiliou of Cyprus at New York's Waldorf-Astoria hotel, Aug. 9, 1992. (AP Photo/Mario Cabrera, File)

FILE -Cyprus President George Vassiliou, left, smiles as his son Evelthon, 17, is introduced to the daughter of Massachusetts Governor and Democratic presidential nominee Michael S. Dukakis, Kara, 19, at the Statehouse in Boston on Aug. 3, 1988 as Dukakis, second from right looks on, during a visit by the Cyprus President to Boston. (AP Photo/Carol Francavilla, File)