Lindsey Vonn has 24 years of memories at Olympic host Cortina, many of them sentimental or historic

Her first career podium. The women’s World Cup wins mark. A course-record 12 victories. The family reunions with her Italy-based sister. And a rare European race visit by her mother.

Lindsey Vonn is attempting to recover from a left knee injury in time to try and win an Olympic medal next weekend at age 41.

One of the biggest reasons she came back in the first place after nearly six years of retirement — and what's motivating her now — is that she wants to return to the town hosting women's races at the Milan Cortina Winter Games.

Vonn is the queen of Cortina d'Ampezzo, the resort known as “the Queen of the Dolomites.” Her memories there go back nearly a quarter century.

“I don’t think I would have tried this comeback if the Olympics weren’t in Cortina,” Vonn said before her injury. “If it had been anywhere else, I would probably say it’s not worth it. But for me, there’s something special about Cortina that always pulls me back and it’s pulled me back one last time.”

Vonn recently looked back at her career in Cortina during an interview with The Associated Press:

Vonn’s first race in Cortina was back in January 2002, before some of her current competitors were even born.

Approaching what would be her first Olympics a month later at the 2002 Salt Lake City Games, Vonn’s debut in Cortina was a World Cup super-G and she didn’t finish it.

“I was skiing pretty well at the time, but I wasn’t really putting everything together,” she said. “And I remember in Cortina being nervous about making the Olympic team. I don’t think I skied badly. But I didn’t finish, so at that point I definitely hadn’t been able to put all the pieces together.”

Vonn’s Cortina record doesn't have an entry for 2003.

Why?

“Oh, I got demoted,” she said. “I was sent back to Europa Cup. They definitely put all their weight behind Julia (Mancuso),” referring to skiing’s “minor leagues” circuit and her former teammate.

“At that point I hadn’t 100% committed to speed. … I had been racing more tech races than I had speed, so I was still kind of not sure where I fit in and I was still super skinny at the time and I was just trying to figure everything out.”

Vonn’s demotion motivated her to hire a physical trainer and get into better shape.

Turns out, it didn’t take Vonn very long “to figure everything out.”

When she returned to Cortina in 2004, Vonn recorded the first World Cup podium result of her career.

In the first of two downhills that weekend, Vonn finished fifth in what was her first time racing downhill on the Olympia delle Tofane course.

The next day, she finished third in a race won by then Olympic champion Carole Montillet. Lindsey Kildow, as she was still referred to, placed 0.24 seconds behind and only one hundredth behind second-place finisher Renate Goetschl.

“Cortina was really the turning point for me. It’s really where I solidified my mental routine, my physical routine,” Vonn said. “That was the first time I really felt confident enough in what I was doing that I belonged on the podium.”

It was a video session with Alex Hoedlmoser — who has coached Vonn since she was 16 and still coaches her with the U.S. team now — after Vonn’s fifth-place finish that made something click with her.

“He’s like, ‘See, that wasn’t that hard, was it?’ And I was like, ‘No, I can do this.’ And he’s like, 'Yes, you can,'” Vonn said. “I remember it very vividly.

“And then when I did get on the podium, it was such a great feeling, and I remember calling my dad, and my grandparents, and my mom, and crying, and it was a really special moment, and really a turning point for me in my career, where I really believed that I could be amongst the best in the world.”

Vonn didn’t win her first race in Cortina until 2008. But ever since that 2004 podium, she has felt comfortable there.

“It’s kind of like Lake Louise where I don’t have to think too much about it,” Vonn said, referring to the Canadian resort where she won 18 races. “I know where to go, I know what it takes, and it’s a very special place for me and no matter how many wins or losses I’ve had there, that won’t change.”

While Tiger Woods may have stolen the show, what Vonn likes to remember about when she broke Annemarie Moser-Pröll’s 35-year-old World Cup wins record in 2015 with victory No. 63, in Cortina, is that she was surrounded by her family.

“I have a big family and they really haven’t come to hardly any World Cups in my career, unfortunately,” Vonn said. “That was a really special weekend. My dad and his wife and my mom and her husband, my sister Laura, were there. It was really special. I don’t have many pictures or memories of my family being at World Cup races. We have the Olympics but even then it’s not my whole family. So I really cherished that weekend.”

Vonn’s younger sister, Laura, lived in Florence then and the siblings met up annually in Cortina. Vonn’s mother, Lindy, died in 2022 of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), otherwise known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.

“It’s nice,” Vonn said of the 2015 race, “to be able to look back and remind myself of those memories.”

It hasn’t been just joy for Vonn in Cortina.

There were also tears when she struggled there in 2019, realizing that she would soon have to retire due to the pain in her knees and joints.

After getting a partial joint replacement in her right knee, Vonn returned to racing last season and now she’s heading back to Cortina aiming to add some new entries to her career record there — if her left knee allows it.

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

FILE - United States's Lindsey Vonn skis during an alpine ski, women's World Cup downhill training, in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, Friday, Jan. 27, 2017. (AP Photo/Alessandro Trovati, File)

FILE - Lindsey Vonn, of the United States, speeds down the the 2.340-kilometer (1.45-mile) Olympia delle Tofane course on her way to take fifth place in a women's ski World Cup super-G event, in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, Sunday, Jan. 20, 2008. (AP Photo/Marco Trovati, File)

FILE - United States' Lindsey Vonn, right, poses for photographs with her mother Linda Krohn, center, and her sister Laura Kildow, at the end of an alpine ski, women's World Cup downhill race, in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, Friday, Jan. 16, 2015. (AP Photo/Andrew Dampf, File)

FILE - Lindsey Vonn, then Kildow, from the United States, celebrates on the podium after placing third in the World Cup women's downhill race in Cortina D'Ampezzo, Italy, Sunday, Jan. 18, 2004. (AP Photo/Marco Trovati, File)

FILE - United States' Lindsey Vonn prepares for an alpine ski, women's World Cup downhill training, in Cortina D'Ampezzo, Italy, Thursday, Jan.18, 2018. (AP Photo/Gabriele Facciotti, File)

CAIRO (AP) — Gaza’s Rafah border crossing with Egypt reopened on Monday for limited traffic, a key step in the Israeli-Hamas ceasefire but a mostly symbolic development on the ground as few people will be allowed to travel in either direction and no goods will be going into the war-torn territory.

Within the first couple of hours of the opening, no one was actually seen crossing in or out of Gaza. An Egyptian official said 50 Palestinians would cross in each direction on the first day of Rafah's operation.

About 20,000 Palestinian children and adults needing medical care hope to leave the devastated Gaza via the crossing, according to Gaza health officials. Thousands of other Palestinians outside the territory hope to enter and return home.

State-run Egyptian media and an Israeli security official also confirmed the reopening. The officials spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss the issue.

Before the war, Rafah was the main crossing for people moving in and out of Gaza. The territory’s handful of other crossings are all shared with Israel. Under the terms of the ceasefire, which went into effect in October, Israel’s military controls the area between the Rafah crossing and the zone where most Palestinians live.

Violence still continued across the coastal territory Monday, and Gaza hospital officials said an Israeli navy ship had fired on a tent camp, killing a 3-year-old Palestinian boy. Israel’s military said it was looking into the incident.

About 150 hospitals across Egypt are ready to receive Palestinian patients evacuated from Gaza through Rafah, authorities said. Also, the Egyptian Red Crescent said it has readied “safe spaces” on the Egyptian side of the crossing to support those evacuated from the Gaza Strip.

Israel has banned sending patients to hospitals in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem since the war began — a move that cut off what was previously the main outlet for Palestinians needing medical treatment unavailable in Gaza.

Israel has said it and Egypt will vet people for exit and entry through the Rafah crossing, which will be supervised by European Union border patrol agents with a small Palestinian presence. The numbers of travelers are expected to increase over time, if the system is successful.

Fearing that Israel could use the crossing to push Palestinians out of the enclave, Egypt has repeatedly said it must be open for them to enter and exit Gaza. Historically, Israel and Egypt have vetted Palestinians applying to cross.

A 3-year-old Palestinian was killed Monday when Israel navy hit tents sheltering displaced people on the coast of Gaza’s southern city of Khan Younis, Palestinian hospital authorities said.

According to the Nasser hospital, which received the body, the attack happened in Muwasi, a tent camp area on the Gaza Strip’s coast. The boy was the latest among Palestinians in Gaza since the October ceasefire in Gaza.

More than 520 Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire since October 10, according to the strip’s health ministry. The casualties since the ceasefire, which UNICEF said include more than 100 children, are among the over 71,700 Palestinians killed since the start of Israel’s offensive, according to Gaza health ministry, which does not say how many were fighters or civilians.

The ministry, which is part of Gaza's Hamas-led government, keeps detailed casualty records that are seen as generally reliable by U.N. agencies and independent experts.

Israeli troops seized the Rafah crossing in May 2024, calling it part of efforts to combat arms-smuggling for the militant Hamas group. The crossing was briefly opened for the evacuation of medical patients during a ceasefire in early 2025. Israel had resisted reopening the Rafah crossing, but the recovery of the remains of the last hostage in Gaza cleared the way to move forward.

The reopening is seen as a key step as the U.S.-brokered ceasefire agreement that took effect on Oct. 10 moves into its second phase.

The truce halted more than two years of war between Israel and Hamas that began with the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Its first phase called for the exchange of all hostages held in Gaza for hundreds of Palestinians held by Israel, an increase in badly needed humanitarian aid and a partial pullback of Israeli troops.

The second phase of the ceasefire deal is more complicated. It calls for installing the new Palestinian committee to govern Gaza, deploying an international security force, disarming Hamas and taking steps to begin rebuilding.

Federman reported from Jerusalem.

Find more of AP’s coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war

Mourners pray beside the body of Iyad Abu Rabi, 3, who was killed when an Israeli strike hit tents sheltering displaced people along the coast of Khan Younis, according to hospital officials, at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, Monday, Feb. 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

Khadija Abu Rabi cradles the body of her son, Iyad, 3, who was killed when an Israeli strike hit tents sheltering displaced people along the coast of Khan Younis, according to hospital officials, at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, Monday, Feb. 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

Khadija Abu Rabi mourns over the body of her son, Iyad, 3, who was killed when an Israeli strike hit tents sheltering displaced people along the coast of Khan Younis, according to hospital officials, at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, Monday, Feb. 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

A crane enters the Egyptian gate of the Rafah crossing to the Gaza Strip, in Rafah, Egypt, Sunday, Feb. 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Mohamed Arafat)

Trucks carrying humanitarian aids line up to enter the Egyptian gate of the Rafah crossing, heading for inspection by Israeli authorities before entering the Gaza Strip, in Rafah, Egypt, Sunday, Feb. 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Mohamed Arafat)

Ambulances line up to enter the Egyptian gate of the Rafah crossing on the way to the Gaza Strip, in Rafah, Egypt, Sunday, Feb. 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Mohamed Arafat)