On a Sunday morning filled with all kinds of emotion, American Breezy Johnson won the women’s Olympic downhill race. It was the first gold medal of Johnson’s career and the first awarded to the United States at the 2026 Winter Olympics.
"It's pretty sweet," Johnson told NBC's Cara Banks after the gold-worthy performance. "Sometimes good things maybe do come to those who wait."
Johnson’s triumph in Cortina officially closed the loop on her full-circle moment. Just weeks before the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, she crashed in a training run and injured her knee, which forced her to miss the Games. The place the heartbreak occurred? The Tofane Alpine Skiing Centre in Cortina.
Four years later, on the same course, Johnson became only the second American woman in Alpine skiing history to win Olympic downhill gold. The first was Lindsey Vonn at the Vancouver Games in 2010.
"I think part of what hurt the most in 2022 was that I did love this course," she said. "Sometimes the things you love can hurt you the most. Just because it's beautiful doesn't mean that it can also hurt. It means that you have to go and make that possible. And so taking ownership of that is what I've been trying to do for the last four years. Today it paid off."
With the victory, the 30-year-old added another piece of hardware to her rapidly expanding collection. She was a double world champion in 2025, securing gold in the downhill and team combined — alongside Mikaela Shiffrin (USA) — in Salbaach, Austria.
Emma Aicher of Germany took silver, finishing four-hundredths of a second behind Johnson (+0.04), the blink of an eye. The 22-year-old has four victories on the World Cup circuit (the highest level of professional Alpine skiing competition), all coming within the last year. Aicher's star is on the rise, and it shined brighter than ever on Sunday.
Local hero Sofia Goggia snagged bronze in front of the Italian faithful (+0.59). It was the Bergamo, Lombardy native’s third Olympic medal. In 2018, she won gold in the PyeongChang downhill, and like Johnson, hurt her knee in a Cortina crash weeks before the Beijing Games. With a partially torn ACL and minor fibula fracture, she still managed to secure silver in Beijing.
The Milan Cortina bronze completes an "Olympic downhill medal podium" for Goggia, having collected one of each color.
Wearing the 13th bib, Lindsey Vonn (USA) crashed hard moments into her run. The 41-year-old clipped a race gate, twisted around and ultimately lost her balance. She fell on the Tofane Alpine Skiing Centre snow and tumbled down the piste until coming to a stop.
The energized crowd fell silent. A course hold was put into place and medical personnel rushed to attend to the St. Paul, Minnesota native.
After about 15 minutes, Vonn was airlifted via helicopter off the slope for further evaluation.
U.S. Ski & Snowboard provided an update:
"Lindsey Vonn sustained an injury, but is in stable condition and in good hands with a team of American and Italian physicians."
Vonn wasn't the only athlete who struggled to navigate the Tofane slopes. Many stumbled and two others crashed, which included Cande Moreno (AND). She too was airlifted off the mountain.
American Jackie Wiles nearly claimed a medal, coming in fourth (+0.59). She finished less than three-tenths of a second behind the third-place Goggia.