What to watch on Day 1 of the Milan Cortina Olympics: Men’s downhill medal race, Ilia Malinin skates

MILAN (AP) — Men's downhill in Alpine skiing starts as the first medal event of the Milan Cortina Olympics and will take place Saturday, which is officially Day 1 of the Games.

Also in the spotlight will be U.S. figure skating star Ilia Malinin as well as Jessie Diggins, America’s most decorated cross-country skier.

Here is a guide of what to look out for:

Swiss teammates Marco Odermatt and world champion Franjo von Allmen are among the favorites, though there's a long list of contenders for the podium at Stelvio Ski Center in Bormio.

The home crowd will be rooting for Dominik Paris, who in his fifth Games is still looking for his first Olympic medal. The 36-year-old Italian is a Bormio specialist, having won a record six World Cup downhills there. There’s also young Italian Giovanni Franzoni.

U.S. skier Ryan Cochran-Siegle was fastest in the opening downhill training session Wednesday. It is Cochran-Siegle’s third Winter Olympics. He won silver in the super-G at the Beijing Games four years ago.

The event is scheduled to begin at 11:30 a.m. local time (1030 GMT, 5:30 a.m. ET), weather permitting.

Two-time reigning world champion Ilia Malinin, the overwhelming favorite to win Olympic figure skating gold, performs his short program as part of the team event. The defending champion U.S. leads Japan and Italy going into Day 2 of the three-day competition. It's scheduled to begin at 7:45 p.m. local time (1845 GMT, 1:45 p.m. ET) in Milan.

In the free dance, the U.S. team of Madison Chock and Evan Bates is expected back on the ice. The three-time defending world champions won the rhythm dance portion of the team competition Friday.

Diggins, a 34-year-old Minnesota native, is trying to add to her Olympic haul before she retires at the end of the season. She already has a gold, silver, and bronze medal from three earlier Olympics. She will compete Saturday in the 20 kilometer skiathlon. The event is scheduled to begin at 1 p.m. local time (1200 GMT and 7 a.m. ET). Cross-country skiing is held in Val di Fiemme, a valley in the heart of the Dolomites. It's possible medals could be awarded before the men's downhill medals.

There are also medal events in ski jumping (women’s normal hill individual), snowboard (men’s snowboard big air) and speedskating (women’s 3000 meters).

Women's hockey is among the handful of disciplines that have already begun preliminary rounds. The U.S. team opened its campaign with a 5-1 victory over Czechia on Thursday.

Next up for the Americans is Finland. The game is scheduled to begin at 4:40 p.m. local time (1540 GMT, 10:40 a.m. ET) in Milan. Finland officials voiced optimism that Saturday's game will be played as scheduled. An outbreak of norovirus had depleted Finland’s roster and forced the postponement of its first game. The other scheduled games Saturday: Switzerland-Canada; Sweden-Italy; and Germany-Japan.

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

This story corrects the start times of the downhill, figure skating, cross-country and women's hockey events.

United States cross country athletes, from left, Novie McCabe, Jessie Diggins, Sammy Smith, Julia Kern, Rosie Brennan and Hayiley Swirlbul pose for photos before a cross country training session at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Tesero, Italy, Thursday, Feb. 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader)

United States' Hayley Scamurra, left, celebrates after scoring her side's fifth goal during a preliminary round match of women's ice hockey between United States and Czechia at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Thursday, Feb. 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek)

Switzerland's Marco Odermatt reacts at the finish area of an alpine ski, men's downhill official training, at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Bormio, Italy, Friday, Feb. 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

Ilia Malinin, of the United States, practices during a figure skating training session ahead of the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena)

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Lawyers for conservation groups, Native American tribes, and the states of Oregon and Washington returned to court Friday to seek changes to dam operations on the Snake and Columbia Rivers, following the collapse of a landmark agreement with the federal government to help recover critically imperiled salmon runs.

Last year President Donald Trump torpedoed the 2023 deal, in which the Biden administration had promised to spend $1 billion over a decade to help restore salmon while also boosting tribal clean energy projects. The White House called it “radical environmentalism” that could have resulted in the breaching of four controversial dams on the Snake River.

Referring to the decades-long litigation, U.S. District Judge Michael Simon in Portland said it was “deja vu all over again” as he opened the hearing in a packed courtroom.

The plaintiffs argue that the way the government operates the dams violates the Endangered Species Act, and judges have repeatedly ordered changes to help the fish over the years. They're asking the court to order changes at eight large hydropower dams, including lowering reservoir water levels, which can help fish travel through them faster, and increasing spill, which can help juvenile fish pass over dams instead of through turbines.

“We are looking at fish that are on the cusp of extinction,” Amanda Goodin, an attorney with Earthjustice, a nonprofit law firm representing conservation, clean energy and fishing groups in the litigation, said during the hearing. “This is not a situation that can wait.”

In court filings, the federal government called the request a “sweeping scheme to wrest control” of the dams that would compromise the ability to operate them safely and efficiently. Any such court order could also raise rates for utility customers, the government said.

The lengthy legal battle was revived after Trump pulled the U.S. out of the Resilient Columbia Basin Agreement last June. The pact with Washington, Oregon and four Native American tribes had allowed for a pause in the litigation.

The plaintiffs, which include the state of Oregon and a coalition of conservation and fishing groups such as the National Wildlife Federation, filed the motion for a preliminary injunction, with Washington state, the Nez Perce Tribe and Yakama Nation supporting it as “friends of the court.” The parties have described salmon as central to Northwest tribal life.

The Columbia River Basin, spanning an area roughly the size of Texas, was once the world’s greatest salmon-producing river system, with at least 16 stocks of salmon and steelhead. Today, four are extinct and seven are endangered or threatened. Another iconic but endangered Northwest species, a population of killer whales, also depend on the salmon.

The construction of the first dams on the Columbia River, including the Grand Coulee and Bonneville in the 1930s, provided jobs during the Great Depression as well as hydropower and navigation. They made the town of Lewiston, Idaho, the most inland seaport on the West Coast, and many farmers continue to rely on barges to ship their crops.

Opponents of the proposed dam changes include the Inland Ports and Navigation Group, which said in a statement last year that increasing spill “can disproportionately hurt navigation, resulting in disruptions in the flow of commerce that has a highly destructive impact on our communities and economy.”

However, the dams are also a main culprit behind the decline of salmon, which regional tribes consider part of their cultural and spiritual identity.

Speaking before the hearing, Jeremy Takala of the Yakama Nation Tribal Council said “extinction is not an option.”

“This is very personal to me. It's very intimate,” he said, describing how his grandfather took him to go fishing. “Every season of lower survival means closed subsistence fisheries, loss of ceremonies and fewer elders able to pass on fishing traditions to the next generation.”

The dams for which changes are being sought are the Ice Harbor, Lower Monumental, Little Goose and Lower Granite on the Snake River, and the Bonneville, The Dalles, John Day and McNary on the Columbia.

FILE - Water spills over the Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River, which runs along the Washington and Oregon state line, June 21, 2022. (AP Photo/Jessie Wardarski, File)

FILE - Water moves through a spillway of the Lower Granite Dam on the Snake River near Almota, Wash., April 11, 2018. (AP Photo/Nicholas K. Geranios, File)

FILE - This photo shows the Ice Harbor dam on the Snake River in Pasco, Wash, Oct. 24, 2006. (AP Photo/Jackie Johnston, File)