Anna Odine Stroem wins her 2nd gold at Milan Cortina in Olympic debut of women's large hill ski jump

PREDAZZO, Italy (AP) — Anna Odine Stroem made the Olympic debut of women's large hill ski jumping a night to remember for Norway.

Stroem sailed to her second gold medal of the Milan Cortina Games as Norway took the top two spots, with Eirin Maria Kvandal winning silver. Slovenian favorite Nika Prevc settled for bronze.

Stroem said she hadn’t dared to believe she would leave the Olympics with two gold medals and a silver as she praised her team and Kvandal.

“It’s been an unbelievable championship for me. I don’t think much can top this,” Stroem said. “We’ve pushed each other all the way, and now we’ve pushed each other to the top of the podium.”

Women’s ski jumping on the normal hill was first included in the 2014 Sochi Games but until this year, the contest on the large hill had been limited in the Olympics to men.

“These girls — 10 or 15 years ago — had to fight against resistance in the ski jumping system just to be allowed to compete,” said Norway's Prime Minister, Jonas Gahr Støre, who watched the event. “And now they’re jumping like this. It’s impressive, and it’s exactly how it should be.”

Stroem won with a final jump of 132 meters (433 feet). Kvandal's jump was 133.5 meters (438 feet), but Stroem made up for it in style points from the judges and compensation points for wind.

The three jumpers on the podium have amassed a lot of hardware at the Predazzo Ski Jumping Stadium.

Stroem won gold on the normal hill, edging out Prevc, who comes from a famous ski jumping family.

They reversed positions on the podium in the mixed team event with Prevc and her brother, Domen, winning gold with Anze Lanisek and Nika Vodan. Stroem and Kvandal shared silver in the mixed team event with Marius Lindvik and Kristoffer Eriksen Sundal.

Prevc is the defending world champion on both hills, the world record holder for the longest jump by a woman and the defending World Cup champion. She holds a significant lead in this season's standings.

But she struggled to hit the big jumps she’s known for — a problem she also had on the normal hill.

After the first round on the large hill, Prevc was fifth behind four Norwegians.

Kvandal, a two-time world champion, led. Stroem was second and Silje Opseth was behind her.

Prevc was able to overcome the third- and fourth-place jumpers, but couldn't make up for the point deficit after her first jump to climb above third.

The two medals gave Norway 26 in these Games, four more than second-place Italy. Norway also leads in gold medals with 12 to Italy’s eight.

It was the first ski jumping competition in this Olympics without a Japanese athlete on the podium. Nozomi Maruyama, who won bronze in the normal hill and in mixed team, finished eighth.

As the Norwegians celebrated, a weeping Prevc got a bear hug from her father, a ski jumping referee.

Prevc will leave this Olympics with a gold, silver and bronze. She became the first sister to join a brother — two in her case — to have won Olympic medals in the sport.

She followed in the footsteps of her brothers, Peter, a four-time Olympic medalist who won gold in the mixed team jump four years ago in Beijing, and Cene, who shared a team silver with his brother in that Olympics.

She and Domen then became the first brother and sister to win a ski jumping medal at the same Olympics when they won the mixed team event.

Domen won the men's large hill on Saturday and will jump in the debut of the men's super team event Monday.

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

Anna Odine Stroem, of Norway, soars through the air during her first round jump of the ski jumping women's large hill individual at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Predazzo, Italy, Sunday, Feb. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

Silver medalist Eirin Maria Kvandal, of Norway, right, hugs gold medalist Anna Odine Stroem, also of Norway, after the ski jumping women's large hill individual at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Predazzo, Italy, Sunday, Feb. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)

Nika Prevc, of Slovenia, soars through the air during her first round jump of the ski jumping women's large hill individual at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Predazzo, Italy, Sunday, Feb. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

Gold medalist Anna Odine Stroem, of Norway, applauds as silver medalist Eirin Maria Kvandal, also of Norway, celebrates and bronze medalist Nika Prevc, of Slovenia, right, applauds after the ski jumping women's large hill individual at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Predazzo, Italy, Sunday, Feb. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader)

Anna Odine Stroem, of Norway, reacts after winning the gold medal in the ski jumping women's large hill individual at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Predazzo, Italy, Sunday, Feb. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader)

NEW YORK (AP) — This is not the run-up to the midterm elections that Republicans wanted.

A year and a half after winning the White House by promising to lower costs and end wars, Donald Trump is a wartime president overseeing surging energy costs and an escalating overseas conflict.

The war in Iran was largely unpopular even before an American fighter jet was shot down in Iran, a development that dominated headlines on Friday and contradicted Trump’s claim that Tehran's military capabilities have been all but destroyed. One crew member has been rescued.

Earlier in the week, the Republican president offered little clarity to a nation eager for answers during a prime-time address from the White House, his first since the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran more than a month ago, simultaneously suggesting that the war was ending and expanding.

“Thanks to the progress we’ve made, I can say tonight that we are on track to complete all of America’s military objectives shortly, very shortly,” Trump said. “We’re going to hit them extremely hard over the next two to three weeks.”

Trump's comments come roughly six months before voters across the nation begin to cast ballots in elections that will decide control of Congress and key governorships for Trump’s final two years in office. For now, Republicans, who control all branches of government in Washington, are bracing for a painful political backlash.

“You’re looking at an ugly November,” warned veteran Republican pollster Neil Newhouse. “At a point in time when we need every break possible to hold the House and Senate, our edge is being chipped away.”

It’s hard to overstate how dramatically the political landscape has shifted.

At this time last year, many Republican leaders believed there was a path to preserve their narrow House majority and easily hold the Senate. Now they privately concede that the House is all but lost and Democrats have a realistic shot at taking the Senate.

Republicans are also struggling to coalesce around a clear midterm message on Iran.

The Republican National Committee has largely avoided the war in talking points issued to surrogates over the last month. The leaders of the party's campaign committees responsible for the House and Senate declined interview requests. Many vulnerable Republican candidates sidestep the issue, unwilling to defend or challenge Trump publicly.

The president remains deeply popular with Republican voters, and he has vocal supporters like Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.

“That was the best speech I could’ve hoped for,” he wrote on social media after Trump's address on Wednesday evening. Graham said Trump “gave the American people a clear and coherent pathway forward.”

Trump made little effort to sell the conflict to Americans before the initial attack. Five weeks later, at least 13 U.S. service members have been killed and hundreds more injured. Thousands more troops have converged on the region, and the Pentagon requested $200 billion in new funding.

The Strait of Hormuz, a key passage for a fifth of the world’s oil, remains closed. The average price for a gallon of gasoline in the U.S. was $4.08 on Thursday, according to AAA, almost a full dollar higher than on President Joe Biden's last day in office.

On Wednesday, Trump insisted that gas prices would fall quickly once the war concluded but offered no solution for reopening the Strait of Hormuz. Instead, he invited skeptical U.S. allies to do it themselves.

He insisted that the war would be worth it.

“This is a true investment in your grandchildren and your grandchildren’s future,” Trump said. “When it’s all over, the United States will be safer, stronger, more prosperous and greater than it has ever been before.”

Former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Georgia Republican who was once among Trump's most vocal allies in Congress, lashed out against his Iran policy.

“I wanted so much for President Trump to put America First. That’s what I believed he would do. All I heard from his speech tonight was WAR WAR WAR,” she wrote on social media. “Nothing to lower the cost of living for Americans.”

About 6 in 10 U.S. adults say the U.S. military action in Iran has “gone too far,” according to AP-NORC polling from March. Roughly a third approve of how he’s handling Iran overall.

The possibility of sending U.S. forces into Iran also appears politically unpalatable.

About 6 in 10 adults are “strongly” or “somewhat” opposed to deploying U.S. troops on the ground to fight Iran. That includes about half of Republicans. Only about 1 in 10 favor deploying troops.

At the same time, Trump’s approval ratings have remained consistently weak. About 4 in 10 Americans approve of how he’s handling the presidency, roughly in line with how it’s been throughout his second term.

Republican strategist Ari Fleischer, a senior aide in former President George W. Bush’s administration, acknowledged that Trump has not received the polling bump in this war that Bush got after invading Iraq.

Bush, of course, worked to build public backing for the Iraq War before going in. Immediately after the 2003 invasion, Bush's popularity soared, as did the stock market.

Public sentiment and the economy soured only after the conflict stretched on. It ultimately spanned more than eight years, spawning a generation of anti-war Republicans — and sowing the seeds of Trump's “America First” foreign policy.

“My hope is that the Trump experience is the exact opposite of the Bush experience,” Fleischer said.

He said Trump must win the war decisively and quickly to avoid a further backlash, saying there could be a “very significant political upside if things end well, oil comes down and markets rally.”

Fleischer added that Trump's actions will matter much more than his words.

“Ultimately, he is not going to get judged on his persuasion or his explanations or his assertions, he’s going to get judged on results,” he said.

Associated Press writer Linley Sanders in Washington contributed to this report.

In this image made with a long exposure, 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)