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MILAN — Breezy Johnson became the second American woman to win an Olympic gold medal in alpine skiing on Sunday, hours after the first person to accomplish the feat. Lindsey Vonn crashed violently on the famous Tofane course.
Johnson finished in 1:36.1 to win the first Olympic medal of his career. A native of Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Johnson was skiing in his second Olympics. The victory was no surprise: Johnson entered the competition as the reigning downhill world champion.
It was the United States first medal of the Milan Cortina Olympic Games. Johnson extended both arms above her head as she took the podium before accepting her gold medal. She held back tears while speaking the words of the American national anthem.
Breezy Johnson cries as she receives her gold medal on Sunday in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy.Mattia Ozbot/Getty Images“I had a good feeling today, I still can’t believe it, I don’t know yet when it’s going to happen,” Johnson said. “I knew I had to push and go harder than I did in practice. I had to be super clean and I felt like I did it.”
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Germany’s Emma Aicher won the silver medal, just four hundredths of a second behind Johnson. Italy’s Sofia Goggia won bronze, securing the host nation’s fourth medal at these Olympics.
The victory forced Johnson, 30, to confront and overcome his own history of difficulties on this course. In 2022, she crashed during a training run in Cortina and tore cartilage in her right knee, forcing her to miss that year’s Beijing Olympics.
“I’m going to have to come back to the same place with a reconstituted body and try to achieve my goals,” she told NBC last May. “It’s a beautiful place, (but) it has teeth and it’s also hurt a lot of people.”
Johnson survived the 1.6-mile course with more than 2,000 feet of elevation change Sunday by making up time on the five women who ran the course in front of her during the back half of the race.
However, seven skiers later, Vonn didn’t make it – crashing hard after just 13 seconds. She was airlifted from the course, which reopened after a delay of about 30 minutes. This happened 16 years after Vonn won the Olympic gold medal in Vancouver, Canada.
All the while, Johnson sat in a “leader’s chair” at the bottom of the race, waiting for the 30 competitors behind her to see if any could under her time. She wore a headband that she had knitted herself by hand, as has become her habit to pass the time before the races. Halfway through the field, after the world’s top 10 skiers had already made their runs, it became much more likely that Johnson would become the winner, and she became emotional and was seen in tears.
“Last year at the world championships I won from Bib 1 (the first runner), so I had to wait the whole race, so I know a little bit about what it’s like. Personally, I prefer to race early.”
Like the Tofane journey itself, Johnson’s path to gold was not a straight line. In May 2024, the US Anti-Doping Agency suspended her for 14 months for missing three doping tests in 12 months. Johnson said the first missed test was his fault, but told NBC News in July that problems with the anti-doping agency’s app led to the second and third failures.
Last fall, Johnson injured her back while lifting weights, about eight weeks before the start of the ski season, calling it on social media “the worst pain of my life, and that includes three knee surgeries, dislocations and a broken leg.”
Sunday’s race will be remembered for more physical pain – after Vonn could be heard screaming following her fall and crash. The 41-year-old was trying to become the oldest alpine skier, male or female, to win a medal at the Olympics, and was competing just nine days after tearing the ACL in her left knee.
“My heart goes out to her, I hope it’s not as bad as it seems and I know how difficult it is to ski this course,” Johnson said. “And sometimes, because you love this class so much, when you crash into it and it hurts like that, it hurts even more.”
Andrew Greif is a sports reporter for NBC News Digital.