For a little over 30 years of her life, Breezy Johnson (USA) woke up as Breezy Johnson. On Monday, Feb. 9, she woke up as Olympic gold medalist Breezy Johnson.

“I’ve still been having a lot of anxiety today that something went wrong,” she told NBCOlympics.com with a laugh. “That it didn’t happen.”

Was it a dream? Did she actually do the thing of all Olympic things? Did her medal really break?

Yes, she did it. And yes, it did (although she got a new one).

Johnson captured gold in the women’s Alpine skiing downhill in Cortina on Sunday. It was the first gold medal awarded to an American at the 2026 Milan Cortina Games and the first won by Breezy.

“I haven't won a lot of things in my career,” she said 24 hours after the accomplishment. “We were joking on the team last year, I was 16 when I started FIS [International Ski & Snowboard] and I've had like 12 wins in any competition. So there haven’t been many times that I've heard The National Anthem playing for me. It was just a pretty surreal experience.

“Sometimes good things do come to those who wait.”

The Jackson Hole, Wyoming native waited on the sidelines when she tore cartilage in her right knee (ironically, in Cortina) weeks before the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing. The injury forced her to miss the Games.

She waited months to be able to train with her teammates and coaches again following a whereabouts suspension in 2024.

Breezy waited in the leader’s chair on Sunday for an hour and 32 minutes as 30 other racers completed their downhill runs and two lengthy course holds occurred — one of which was so that her Team USA compatriot Lindsey Vonn could be airlifted away from the scene of her scary crash.

The waiting is over. The results are official. Now Johnson gets to experience her PGML (post gold medal life). Is it everything she expected and more?

“I don't think so, although I don't know that I really thought that far after winning,” she revealed. “Everything since has been a little bit of a crazy whirlwind. Pieces of it have been really nice. I got to spend more time with my family than I expected. They let them come up for dinner here at our hotel and stuff like that, which was really nice. 

“But then it's also been a lot of media and craziness too.”

Breezy was in the midst of a “media car wash” when we chatted. She sat in front of a curtain plastered with “Team USA” logos. Her schedule was packed. She talked to every TV station, written publication and social media platform that could secure a few minutes with the new American hero.

The off the slopes “stuff” that comes with winning on the biggest stage had just begun, but her Winter Olympics were far from over. Between TV hits, Johnson had to prepare to compete in the downhill leg of the team combined (she wound up posting the quickest time) with Mikaela Shiffrin (USA) and the super-G. 

Typically a chatty, open book interview subject, Breezy seemed slightly different on Monday. Content but spent. Perhaps she was conserving energy. Whatever it was, she exuded a recent gold medal glow.

To her credit, Johnson saved her longest response to pay respects to someone else.

“Lindsay [Vonn’s] been with me through so much of my career. It was long my dream to share a podium with her, to share the podium with two other Americans. Yesterday, we really felt like that was possible. We were all aiming for that. 

“To have it end in such a horrific and sad way was definitely hard. My heart goes out to her. 

“I always say, you never leave the women's ski team. You just retire. When she retired, I was like, you're still part of this team. Then she came back, and that was kind of surreal. I never really expected that to happen. 

“She's lived by the sword, died by the sword. I definitely respect that.”

Before either of us could utter another word, a PR rep swooped into the frame and cut off the conversation. Breezy needed to get ready for Today.