CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy (AP) — Make that seven straight races without a medal for Mikaela Shiffrin at the Winter Olympics.
The American skiing standout was given the ideal platform to win the new team combined event after partner Breezy Johnson led the opening downhill leg on Tuesday.
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US players celebrate at the end of a preliminary round match of women's ice hockey between USA and Canada at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek)
Germany's Julia Taubitz celebrates winning the gold medal during a women's single luge competition at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Aijaz Rahi)
Sweden's Isabella Wranaa and Rasmus Wranaa celebrate on the podium after winning the gold medal match of the mixed doubles curling at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Misper Apawu)
Johannes Hoesflot Klaebo, of Norway, poses after winning the gold medal in the cross-country skiing men's sprint classic at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Tesero, Italy, Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
United State's Mikaela Shiffrin reacts as she looks back to see her disappointing time as Germany's Emma Aicher, background left, and Kira Weidle Winkelmann celebrate winning the silver medal in an alpine ski, women's team combined race, at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
United States' Mikaela Shiffrin, left, is hugged by United States' Paula Moltzan at the finish area of an alpine ski, women's team combined race, at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)
Shiffrin was the last racer out in the slalom — the second leg of the event — and had the 15th-fastest time, dropping the U.S. to fourth place and extending her Olympic slump that stretches back to 2022 when she didn’t win a medal in any of her six races at the Beijing Games.
Ariane Raedler and Katharina Huber of Austria won gold, while Paula Moltzan and Jacqueline Wiles took bronze ahead of their more high-profile U.S. teammates.
Olympic redemption will have to wait, then, for Shiffrin, who is the most successful World Cup racer of all time with a record 108 victories. She is set to compete in her core events of slalom and giant slalom later in the Milan Cortina Games as she looks to add to her two golds and a silver from her first two Olympics.
Johnson missed out on a second medal, having won the downhill on Sunday.
Don't be surprised if Johannes Høsflot Klæbo soon holds the all-time record for gold medals at the Winter Games.
The Norwegian cross-country star powered to his second straight Olympic gold — and seventh of his career — by winning the men’s sprint. He was a comfortable 0.8 seconds ahead of Ben Ogden of the United States.
Klæbo moved to one gold behind three compatriots: Marit Bjørgen, Bjørn Dæhlie and Ole Einar Bjørndalen, all of whom have retired with a record-tying eight. Bjørgen and Dæhlie also were cross-country skiers. Bjørndalen won his gold medals in biathlon, which combines cross-country skiing with shooting.
Klæbo can join them by winning the 10-kilometer freestyle on Friday. He already won the skiathlon on Sunday for his sixth gold.
In the women's final, King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden watched as the country swept the medals. Linn Svahn edged defending champion Jonna Sundling and Maja Dahlqvist was third.
It was an emotional day for Norway's medal winners at the biathlon.
After winning the men’s 20-kilometer individual race, Johan-Olav Botn paid tribute to a teammate who died in the lead-up to the Olympics.
Botn pointed to the sky as he crossed the line in honor of Sivert Guttorm Bakken, who was found dead in his hotel room in Lavaze, Italy, in December.
Sturla Holm Laegreid won the bronze medal and then gave quite the post-race interview, revealing — while fighting back tears — in a live broadcast that he had been unfaithful to his girlfriend.
The golds for Botn and Klæbo took Norway to six overall — three more than any other nation so far.
The U.S.-Canada rivalry in women's hockey has turned extremely lopsided.
The Americans made it seven straight wins over their biggest rival by winning 5-0 in what many saw as a preview of the title match.
Hannah Bilka scored twice as the United States overwhelmed a Canadian team missing its captain, Marie-Philip Poulin, to clinch first place in Group A. The team swept all four of its preliminary-round games by a combined score of 20-1.
The reward for the U.S. in the quarterfinals? A match against host nation Italy.
Isabella and Rasmus Wranå, Sweden’s first team of siblings at the Winter Olympics, won gold in mixed doubles curling by beating U.S. pair Cory Thiesse and Korey Dropkin.
A two-point play by Isabella off the final rock of a tight match sealed a 6-5 win for the Swedish duo, who used to be rival players and now are Olympic champions together.
The Americans won a first medal in Olympic mixed doubles, and Thiesse became the first American woman to capture a medal in curling.
Gold in women’s singles luge went to Germany — again.
Julia Taubitz became the 13th winner from Germany in 17 editions, finishing nearly a full second ahead of Elina Bota of Latvia after four runs over two days. Ashley Farquharson took bronze, the third singles medal ever for USA Luge at the Olympics and matching the best finish by an American women’s slider.
An Olympic gold completes Taubitz’s resume. Now-retired German great Natalie Geisenberger won the last three gold medals.
Twenty years later, Italian short track speedskater Arianna Fontana is still winning medals at the Winter Olympics.
The latest was a gold in the mixed team relay. That took her to three golds and 12 medals overall in an Olympic career that started in 2006 — when she was 15 — at the Winter Games in Turin.
Fontana was already the most decorated short track speedskater of all time and there’s chances for more medals in the 500 and the 3,000 relay at the 2026 Olympics.
AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics
US players celebrate at the end of a preliminary round match of women's ice hockey between USA and Canada at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek)
Germany's Julia Taubitz celebrates winning the gold medal during a women's single luge competition at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Aijaz Rahi)
Sweden's Isabella Wranaa and Rasmus Wranaa celebrate on the podium after winning the gold medal match of the mixed doubles curling at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Misper Apawu)
Johannes Hoesflot Klaebo, of Norway, poses after winning the gold medal in the cross-country skiing men's sprint classic at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Tesero, Italy, Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
United State's Mikaela Shiffrin reacts as she looks back to see her disappointing time as Germany's Emma Aicher, background left, and Kira Weidle Winkelmann celebrate winning the silver medal in an alpine ski, women's team combined race, at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
United States' Mikaela Shiffrin, left, is hugged by United States' Paula Moltzan at the finish area of an alpine ski, women's team combined race, at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)
ATLANTA (AP) — The FBI relied on years-old claims of fraud, many of them thoroughly investigated, to obtain a search warrant to seize ballots from election offices in Fulton County, Georgia, according to an affidavit unsealed Tuesday that shows the investigation began with a referral from an administration official who tried to help President Donald Trump overturn his 2020 election loss.
The affidavit provides the first public justification for an FBI search last month that targeted a county Trump and his allies have long seen as central to their false claim that the 2020 election was stolen. It cites claims that for years have been made by people who assert widespread fraud in the contest even though audits, state officials, courts and Trump's own former attorney general have all rejected the idea of widespread problems that could have altered the outcome.
The investigation was initiated by a referral from Kurt Olsen, who served as Trump’s 2020 campaign lawyer when it lost dozens of lawsuits challenging the election and now serves as an administration official overseeing the attempt to investigate Trump’s loss, according to the affidavit.
The search of the heavily Democratic county stirred immediate concerns among Democrats that Trump was marshaling the powers of the FBI and Justice Department to pursue retribution over his persistent claims of a stolen election and because of the unusual presence of Tulsi Gabbard, the country's director of national intelligence. The affidavit makes no mention of any evidence of foreign interference in the 2020 election even though the possibility of such meddling has been a longstanding conspiracy theory among Trump supporters who question the vote count.
Democrat Joe Biden won Georgia by about 11,800 votes in an election overseen by a Republican secretary of state and certified by a Republican governor.
Georgia officials fighting in court for the return of the ballots have decried the search, with Fulton County Chairman Robb Pitts on Tuesday calling the allegations “recycled rumors, lies, untruths and unproven conspiracy theories.”
“These accusations have already been debunked, but here we go again on a merry-go-round,” Pitts said. “Fulton County will fight. We’ll fight this with every resource that’s at our disposal and we will not stop fighting.”
The affidavit says the FBI is examining possible “deficiencies or defects” in the Fulton County vote count, including its admission that it does not have scanned images of all the ballots counted during the original count or the recount. Fulton County has also confirmed that some ballots were scanned multiple times during the recount, the affidavit says.
“If these deficiencies were the result of intentional action, it would be a violation of federal law regardless of whether the failure to retain records or the deprivation of a fair tabulation of a vote was outcome determinative for any particular election or race,” the document says.
The affidavit says seizure of the election records was necessary to determine whether any records "were destroyed and or the tabulation of votes included materially false votes.” It cites potential violations of a law regarding the preservation and retention of election records, a misdemeanor. It also cites a law that makes it a crime to “knowingly and willfully” deprive residents of a “fair and impartially conducted election process,” which is a felony.
But the document also expresses uncertainty about whether the potential defects constitute a crime, noting that elections in Fulton County have already been the subject of multiple reviews.
Investigations into complaints by the secretary of state’s office, an independent monitor and a performance review by the state elections board, which came at the urging of the Republican-controlled legislature, reached similar conclusions.
After a particularly disastrous primary election in 2020, an independent monitor was hired to observe the general election that year as part of an agreement between the county and the State Election Board. He documented “sloppy processes” and “systemic disorganization” but found no evidence of illegality or fraud.
Republican state lawmakers in 2021 used a provision of a new law to initiate a performance review of the county’s election practices. That review found that the county’s elections had been characterized by “disorganization and a lack of a sense of urgency in resolving issues.” But it also found the county had shown marked improvement.
According to the affidavit, the review board stated, “we do not see any evidence of fraud, intentional misconduct, or large systematic issues that would have affected the result of the November 2020 election.”
One of the central allegations is that someone inserted 17,852 “duplicate” ballot images into the Fulton County file. But the affidavit quotes one witness as noting that those potentially fake images were actually more pro-Trump than the confirmed Fulton County votes. This indicated to the witness, the affidavit states, “that the introduction of duplicate ballots was intended to make the recount numbers match more than to affect the outcome of the election.”
That was a similar conclusion as that of investigators with the Georgia Secretary of State’s office, the affidavit adds, saying the Republican-run office found the error “not intentional misconduct.”
Another allegation focuses on “pristine” absentee ballots that an unnamed poll manager said she saw when the ballots were counted by hand. She said the ballots were not folded as they would have been if they were put in an envelope, felt different from the other ballots and were all filled in the same, the affidavit says.
A former official with the secretary of state’s office told the FBI that there would be unfolded absentee ballots in every election because they would be generated by vote review panel members when they examined damaged ballots.
Investigators with the secretary of state’s office looked into claims of pristine ballots in 2021, pulling boxes and batches identified by a woman who had worked as an auditor during the hand count, and found no evidence to support her claims.
Agents armed with a warrant spent hours on Jan. 28 at the county elections hub, just south of Atlanta, before driving off with trucks loaded with hundreds of cartons of election materials.
A week after the seizure, Fulton County officials filed a motion seeking the return of the materials that had been taken and the unsealing of the sworn statement presented to the judge who signed off on the search. The warrant sought the seizure of the following documents related to the 2020 election in the county: all ballots, tabulator tapes from the scanners that tally the votes, electronic ballot images created when the ballots were counted and then recounted, and all voter rolls.
“Claims that the 2020 election results were fraudulent or otherwise invalid have been exhaustively reviewed and, without exception, refuted,” the county argued in a court filing.
Associated Press writer Nicholas Riccardi in Denver contributed to this report.
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, left, and FBI Deputy Director Andrew Bailey, enter a command vehicle as the FBI takes Fulton County 2020 Election ballots, Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026, in Union City, Ga., near Atlanta. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
An FBI employee stands inside the Fulton County Election HUB as the FBI takes Fulton County 2020 Election ballots, Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026, in Union City, Ga., near Atlanta. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
Equipment is loaded into a truck inside the Fulton County Election HUB as the FBI takes Fulton County 2020 Election ballots, Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026, in Union City, Ga., near Atlanta. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
The Fulton County Election Hub and Operation Center, is seen Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026, in Union City, Ga, near Atlanta, as FBI agents search at the main election facility. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
