Ski Racer Claims Team USA's First Olympic Gold Medal in 2026 Games
The American Breezy Johnson set the tone early.
She was the sixth ski racer of the day to drop into the Olympia delle Tofane downhill course on Sunday, and after blazing from top to bottom in one minute and 36.10 seconds, set the fastest time of the day.
The reward for her efforts? The first medal of these Winter Olympics for Team USA, regardless of sport. And it was gold.
"I had a good feeling about today," Johnson said afterwards, according to FIS. "I still can’t believe it yet, I don’t know when it will sink in. I knew I had to push, go harder than I did in training. I had to be super clean and felt like I did that. But I knew the speeds were good so I hoped it would be enough."
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Emma Aicher, of Germany, nearly caught her, missing the top spot by 0.4 seconds, finishing second. The bronze medalist, Italy’s Sofia Goggia, trailed Johnson by a wider gap: 0.59 seconds.
For Johnson, it marked another chapter in a successful past year of ski racing. She’s the reigning 2025 downhill world champion. She also clinched the top spot in the team combined at those world championships alongside Mikaela Shiffrin.
But the Olympic hardware was something new and a career first. Johnson last competed in the Winter Games in 2018, having missed the 2022 Winter Games because of a knee injury.
Her win wasn’t the only big story of the day for Team USA.
Soon after Johnson, Lindsey Vonn, the 41-year-old ski racing legend, mounting a historic and widely publicized comeback, took on the Tofane.
There was a caveat, though—days before the Olympic downhill race, Vonn had ruptured her ACL in her left knee in a World Cup competition. She decided to go without the ligament, setting the groundwork for what could become a storybook moment.
But in Italy, Vonn clipped a gate, rotating through the air, landing sideways, and disappearing into a cloud of snow. A stunned silence settled over the course. Medics surrounded Vonn. Minutes later, she was airlifted away.
In a statement shared on social media, U.S. Ski & Snowboard confirmed that Vonn was injured but was stable and “in good hands with a team of American and Italian physicians.” The Associated Press reported that, according to the Ca' Foncello hospital, she’s undergone an orthopedic operation to stabilize a fracture in her right leg.
“My heart goes out to her. I hope it’s not as bad as it looked and I know how difficult it is to ski this course,” Johnson said, NBC reported. “And how sometimes, because you love this course so much, when you crash on it and it hurts you like that, it hurts that much worse.”