USA’s downhill threat Breezy Johnson has learned to live with doubt and fear

While much of the attention has been placed on Lindsey Vonn in the run-up to the Winter Olympics, her teammate has an extraordinary story of her own

In December 2024, Breezy Johnson glided into the starting gate on the Stifel Birds of Prey downhill course atop Colorado’s Beaver Creek, a sight for sore eyes and a bundle of nerves. “The anxiety will always be there until I’m in the downhill gate,” the 30-year-old said at Team USA’s pre-Olympics media summit in October. “Like, at no point can [I tell myself], I’ve got this thing.”

Out of World Cup action for 14 months after whereabouts failures, she dropped on to Birds of Prey as bib No 32 in the 45-racer field – all women for the first time in the history of the legendary venue. With a few bends of her reconstructed knees, she snapped through the timing wand, charged through the Abyss (one of Birds of Prey’s steepest pitches) and kept carving her way through the 1.7-mile (2.7km) drop’s icy chop. Altogether, it was a solid run for Johnson, a 13th-place finish on home snow to restart her World Cup scoring streak. And just like that, America’s would-be standard bearer of the slopes was at it again. Continue reading...