CORTINA D'AMPEZZO, Italy — For Breezy Johnson, the road to an Olympic gold medal was similar to the winning downhill run she turned in Sunday: It was full of jarring bumps that nearly knocked her off course, but not off target.
There was the knee injury here in Cortina during a training crash that ultimately kept the American from competing in the 2022 Beijing Games. There was the 14-month ban for violating "whereabouts" rules when it comes to testing for doping.
She kept a hard-charging attitude and that was on display in Cortina on a day marred by teammate Lindsey Vonn's crash and trip to a hospital. The 30-year-old Johnson joins Vonn, 41, as the only American women to win the Olympic downhill.
“People are jealous of people with Olympic gold medals. They’re not necessarily jealous of the journey it took to get those medals,” said Johnson, who has never won a World Cup race. "I don’t think my journey is something that many people are envious of and it’s been a tough road, but sometimes you just have to keep going because that’s the only option. If you're going through hell, you keep walking because you don’t want to just sit around in hell.”
Johnson finished in 1 minute, 36.10 seconds to hold off Emma Aicher of Germany by just .04 seconds, securing the first medal for the United States at the Milan Cortina Games in the process. Italy's Sofia Goggia, the 2018 Olympic downhill winner and 2022 silver medalist, finished with the bronze.
The tears began welling in the eyes of Johnson as racer after racer couldn’t top her time, wiping them away with a mitten.
Her long-awaited medal? That didn't hold up so well. The clasp holding the ribbon to the medal broke. She placed the pieces in her pocket.
“It’s definitely heavier than I expected,” Johnson said of her new hardware. “I think that’s maybe why it broke.”
Johnson was just the sixth racer of the day and found speed with a risk-taking trip along the iconic Olympia delle Tofana course on a sunny day in Cortina. She felt confident it was good enough for a medal, but not as sure if it would be gold.
“But I hoped that it would be enough,” she said. “I just tried to keep it rolling. I knew it was fast in some of the places where I made mistakes. I was like, ‘Did I just make a mistake or did I make a mistake because I was going fast?’ That’s the line that you’re always trying to walk, and today was enough.”
She was in the leader’s box when Vonn, the No. 13 racer, cut a corner too close and was spun around before crashing. The race was put on hold for more than 20 minutes.
“I kind of wish the TV directors maybe wouldn’t have replayed some of the crashes as much as they did,” Johnson said. “It’s a little hard when you’re surrounded by cameras and stuff, not wanting to watch that.”
It's certainly been a bumpy road to the top for Johnson, given the knee injury and a 14-month ban that expired in December 2024. She returned to win the world championship last February.
Now, she’s an Olympic downhill gold medalist. Teammate Jacqueline Wiles finished just 0.27 seconds away from a medal in a tie for fourth place.
“I think that this was the best run Breezy’s ever skied,” teammate Bella Wright said. “There was a lot of expectation, and she rose to the challenge.”
Johnson figures to have another shot at gold in the team event and could be paired with Mikaela Shiffrin.
Vonn's crash put a somber mood over the event. Vonn, who won the downhill at the 2010 Vancouver Games, was a gold-medal favorite before her crash in Switzerland last week when she suffered a ruptured ACL for her latest major knee injury. She returned to elite ski racing last season after nearly six years and after receiving a partial titanium knee replacement in her right knee.
"I hope it’s not as bad as it looked,” Johnson said. “My heart just goes out to her.”
Like Vonn, Cande Moreno of Andorra also was taken away in a helicopter after a crash in which her left knee appeared to buckle while landing after a jump.
For Aicher, the silver medal pairs with the silver she earned as part of the team parallel event at the 2022 Games.
“At the third turn I thought, ”Oh (crap), what am I doing? Come on, Emma,'" she recounted. "But I managed to let the skis go pretty well.”
Both downhill golds this weekend were won by the reigning world champions after Franjo von Allmen of Switzerland won the men's race on Saturday. Both races also featured up-and-coming silver medalists (Aicher, Giovanni Franzoni of Italy) and Italian veterans in bronze position (Goggia, Dominik Paris).
With her bronze medal, Goggia now has an Olympic downhill medal of every color.
“So-so with my performance, but in the overall I got a medal again,” Goggia said. "It’s a privilege.”
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Graham contributed from Bormio, Italy.
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AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics