Big Olympic moments are usually remembered for the time on the clock or the margin at the finish line, but sometimes what happens afterward says just as much. After a razor-thin result put Team USA on the medal board, Breezy Johnson found herself at the center of a long-awaited breakthrough.
While the spotlight naturally stayed on the win, the celebration that followed wasn’t just about standing on the top step. In the hours after the race, Johnson turned her attention away from the result itself and toward the group that helped her get there, sharing a heartfelt message that revealed how much of that moment was built on the people behind the scenes.
Mandatory Credit: Leonhard Foeger/Reuters via Imagn Images
In a video posted by the official ski team account for the U.S, Johnson was seen addressing her team after her triumph. In the video she said, “What everybody in this room did mattered. Sometimes things are decided by small margins. I am grateful to everybody for making those small margins on my side. It has been a long time in the making. Thank you for all of that.”
Breezy Johnson’s run in Cortina turned into the performance of her career. Starting relatively early, she laid down a fast time that no one else could beat, securing Olympic gold by the narrowest of gaps just a few hundredths ahead of Germany’s Emma Aicher. Italy’s Sofia Goggia, racing on home snow, ended up settling for third after the competition was briefly disrupted.
What makes the result even more unusual is that Johnson, already a world champion in downhill, still hasn’t picked up a World Cup race win, yet now owns the biggest titles in her signature event. The road to this moment has been anything but smooth, with a past knee injury forcing her out of the previous Olympics and a suspension interrupting her momentum.
The atmosphere shifted during the race when Lindsey Vonn suffered a heavy fall and had to be taken off the mountain by helicopter, leaving Johnson celebrating a massive achievement on an otherwise emotional day for the U.S. team.