LEILA FADEL: Northern Italy is hosting this year's Winter Olympics. Even though that's thousands of miles from the U.S., many on Team USA are very familiar.
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SARAH HIRSHLAND: Our athletes are comfortable in Italy. They compete there often. Many of them train there. So it is a place that we know we can shine.
FADEL: That's head of the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee, Sarah Hirshland. NPR's Olympics correspondent Pien Huang has more from the athletes.
PIEN HUANG, BYLINE: A few weeks ago, the world's top-ranked female cross-country skier sprinted up a steep slope in Italy's Val di Fiemme, poles pumping for her third Tour de Ski victory.
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UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER #1: Representing the United States of America, Jessie Diggins.
HUANG: Now Diggins is returning to the Tesero Cross-Country Skiing Stadium for the Olympics on a course she's done many times.
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JESSIE DIGGINS: The one interesting twist is that even though it's a course I know super well, it's quite literally running backwards for part of it.
HUANG: Diggins says that helps even the playing fields. At Val di Fiemme, a valley in the Italian Dolomites, athletes will also be ski jumping off steep, specialized ramps and both cross-country skiing and jumping in the Nordic combined. Two hours to the north over winding mountain roads, there's the Antholz-Anterselva biathlon arena. Top athletes have been skiing and shooting rifles here for more than 50 years. Deedra Irwin, America's top female biathlete, is very familiar.
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DEEDRA IRWIN: Yeah. I mean, our whole staff is Italian. We love them. They make great pizza for us all the time.
HUANG: For Irwin, this part of Italy is almost home turf.
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IRWIN: Our coach - our head coach for the last eight years now, he is from the Antholtz Valley, born and raised, and our wax staff has been waxing there, and most of them have been ski racing there since they were kids.
HUANG: The U.S. has never meddled in biathlon, but Irwin says this could be their chance.
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IRWIN: I think we have a unique opportunity on our team, as not being obviously the locals, but we kind of are the locals. We got all the local intel. We got a nice setup in our house there.
HUANG: About 40 miles to the south, the town of Cortina d'Ampezzo will host curling, sliding sports like bobsled and skeleton and women's Alpine skiing on one of the world's most iconic runs, the Olimpia delle Tofane, which debuted at the 1956 Winter Games. It looms large in alpine skier Lindsey Vonn's personal history.
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LINDSEY VONN: I think every athlete kind of has their mountain where they feel most at home. For me, it's always been Cortina and Lake Louise. Those are my two favorite spots.
HUANG: Vonn, who's 41, is coming out of retirement for her fifth Olympic Games.
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VONN: I have a good connection with the mountain. I know what it needs. I know what it takes to win there.
HUANG: Vonn has won many races here, including in 2016, when she broke the women's World Cup downhill record with her 37th win.
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UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER #2: Lindsey Vonn.
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VONN: I love the town. I love the atmosphere. Everyone there has always welcomed me and treated me like a local.
HUANG: A restaurant in Cortina named a margarita pizza after her. Vonn says these mountains lured her back for one more Olympic run.
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VONN: It's such a beautiful place. It's hard not to stand on the top of that mountain and not really realize why you love the sport. So I'm excited to go back there and see the sunrise one more time.
HUANG: Vonn crashed badly at a World Cup race last Friday, but she will compete at the Olympics, skiing with a brace over the torn ligament in her knee. She says as long as there's a chance, she will try.
Pien Huang, NPR News, Milan.
(SOUNDBITE OF ASTROCOLOR'S "SPACEWALK") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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