The Winter Games are underway in Milan and the Italian Alps. There are a bunch of athletes from the North Country competing in events from luge and bobsled, to ski jumping, aerials, and ice hockey.

This is NPR’s Brian Mann’s third time covering the Olympics. Brian was a reporter with NCPR for many years. He still lives in the Adirondacks, so he’s been keeping an eye on our local Olympians.

He checked in live from Italy with Northern Light co-hosts Monica Sandreczki and Catherine Wheeler. Their conversation has been edited for clarity.

CATHERINE WHEELER: What’s it like over there?

BRIAN MANN: You know, I just took a bus up into the mountains. I’ve been in Milan so far through these Olympics, and I was blown away—the ride up into the mountains. I’m here in Cortina now, this gorgeous little mountain town, and I’m actually sitting right outside the sled track, the sliding center. I can see it from where I’m sitting. A beautiful, sunny day here, and the mountains are just breathtaking. I don’t have words for how gorgeous [it is].

WHEELER: Oh, that sounds just lovely. And you said you’re by the sled track. Who are some of the North Country athletes that you’re following, and what have they been doing so far?

MANN: You had that great piece from Emily Russell on earlier that kind of summed it up. It was pretty dramatic Tuesday with Fischnaller, having that hard bump and skid on the track, and then that dramatic recovery. And having a medal for the luge team Tuesday [by Ashley Farquharson] — that was really dramatic and wonderful. And so that’s been really great. I’ll be here watching some of these doubles luge races this afternoon, local time here, and into the evening. And so I’ll be following those as well. And it’s going to be really fun to see some hometown folks sitting here at the press center.

WHEELER: Brian, this is your third time covering the Olympics. How do these games compare to those in Beijing or Paris?

BRIAN MANN: They actually feel really different. And part of it is because they’re so dispersed, right? I spent a big part of the day on trains and buses to get here. So what’s happening in Milan feels really far away from what’s happening up here in the mountains.

That said, what is identical is the joy that I felt in Paris. There’s just so much happiness. And I think the other thing that’s just on the faces of all these athletes is that in Beijing, because it was the end of the pandemic and because China is much more of a locked-down place, it was really difficult for the athletes to really have fun. And here, man, you can really just see that it’s joy first. Obviously, the competition matters, but I’ve seen athletes who’ve really struggled here who are still clearly having an amazing time.

And we’ve also just seen some breakout performances. Ben Ogden’s remarkable finish, winning silver on the cross-country course. Really history-making. He’s a great Vermont racer, part of the Bill Koch tradition there. So there have been some just really breathtaking highlights already.

SANDRECZKI: Well, to the point that you made earlier—this is the first time that the Games have officially been hosted by two pretty distant locations, in Milan and Cortina, and some people here in New York are pointing to this as a model for Lake Placid and New York City to co-host in the future. What are people saying about this spread-out model and its potential?

MANN: I think people here are thinking it’s working really well. And in some ways, New York City and Lake Placid are more linked and more easily accessible than this. Remember, it’s not just two communities here, up here in the Alps. The different courses—I’m going to go see Jessie Diggins race on the cross-country course—that’s going to be another two-hour trip from where I’m staying here. So it’s really scattered. So in some ways, you know, the Lake Placid-New York idea has some advantages.

I think this is a test model. People are talking about it here. They’re discussing everything from how security works to the costs and all of that. But I think so far—I actually chatted with one of the volunteers today, and she was just bubbling about how well it had gone. I think the Italians are really delighted. Of course, they’re also doing really well in the medal count, so that’s great for the home country. But I think everybody thinks this is really coming off remarkably well.

WHEELER: Brian, we’ve been seeing that some of the U.S. Olympic athletes have gotten some backlash for speaking out against the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement actions while they’re there in Italy. What’s going on there?

MANN: This is interesting to me. There are so many of these athletes, these winter sport athletes, who come from places that have been really directly affected by some of these really aggressive Trump administration policies—the ICE crackdown. A lot of it happening in Minneapolis. There are a lot of athletes here from Minnesota. Obviously, it’s a real powerhouse winter sports state. Athletes here from Oregon and other states that have really been directly affected. There are also a lot of athletes here who are the children of immigrants. Some of them were born in other countries themselves. And so there has been a real feeling, I think, among these athletes, that this feels very personal to them.

Sometimes when you go to an event like this, it feels like the reporters, the journalists, are kind of prodding people to have an opinion—asking repeated questions to try to get a response. And this is very different here. The athletes clearly do want to talk about this. They’re concerned about what they’re seeing back home, and some of those comments clearly attracted the President’s attention—he fired off that social media post, and that has been a factor. There have also been threats against some of the U.S. athletes here, so that’s definitely kind of a shadow.

But I do want to really emphasize that overall, the mood here is pretty joyous. It’s pretty positive. Despite some of those tensions, people are having a blast.

SANDRECZKI: And to end on a lighter note—for you in Italy, what are some of the best meals that you’ve had so far?

MANN: You know, I live in Westport, which is near one of the really great pizza joints in the Adirondacks—Dogwood—and so I didn’t think anybody could beat Dogwood’s pizza. But I have had—I’m not even a totally great pizza guy, it’s not my thing—but I have had pizza here that has rocked my world. And I think after I’m done here, I’m not going to eat another carb for, like, two years. But I’ve just been absolutely hounding pizza. And I know that sounds clichéd, but it really is that good. And so yeah, it’s been pretty delicious and pretty decadent.