After Lindsey Vonn broke her leg, Breezy Johnson gained redemptive gold

[ad_1] CORTINA D'AMPEZZO, Italy — It was simply the sort of mechanical failure Breezy Johnson may abide.

Her gold medal snapped off its ribbon when she was leaping round in jubilation. She stuffed the prize — the primary medal for an American athlete on the Milan-Cortina Olympics — into her jacket pocket for safekeeping.

“It was positively heavier than anticipated, and I believe that’s why it broke,” stated Johnson, 30, who was injured on the identical course 4 years earlier. “I don’t know if the Italians are identified for his or her engineering, however … I assume any individual will repair it.”

The cloudless Sunday was bittersweet for the U.S. workforce, the hundreds of followers watching from the bleachers past the end line and the viewers of untold thousands and thousands watching all over the world.

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(Handout / Getty Photographs)

That’s as a result of Lindsey Vonn , the 41-year-old legend racing with a torn anterior cruciate ligament , violently crashed simply 13 seconds into her race, dropping management on the primary bounce as her pole hit a gate, turning sideways within the air and slamming to the bottom. The race was stopped so medical personnel attended to her and a helicopter airlifted her to a clinic in Cortina, then transferred to a bigger hospital in Treviso, a two-hour drive to the south, the Related Press reported.

She was being “handled by a multidisciplinary workforce” and “underwent an orthopedic operation to stabilize a fracture reported in her left leg,” the Ca’ Foncello hospital stated in a press release. The U.S. Ski Group stated Vonn was “in secure situation and in good palms with a workforce of American and Italian physicians.”

There was a collective gasp from the gang, watching on a videoboard, because the crash occurred close to the highest of the hill and behind a crag. For what felt like an eternity — however was actually 20 minutes — the entire place was enveloped in an eerie silence, the one sound being the regular thump of techno-pop taking part in by way of the loudspeakers.

As Vonn was being evacuated on a stretcher related by a cable to the chopper — little greater than a dot dangling above the bushes — the emcee urged the gang to cheer loud sufficient for her to listen to. The followers complied, applauding her and the storied profession even fellow skiers have referred to as “superhuman.”

“That positively was the very last thing we needed to see,” Karin Kildow, Vonn’s sister, stated in an interview with Peacock. “It occurred fast, so when that occurs you’re identical to instantly hoping she’s OK. It was scary as a result of whenever you begin to see the stretchers being put out it’s not a great signal.”

Johnson, who skied the course in 1 minute 36.10 seconds — four-hundredths of a second quicker than second-place Emma Aicher of Germany — grimaced and lowered her head within the chief’s chair whereas watching the replays of the crash.

“I sort of want the TV administrators possibly wouldn’t have replayed a number of the crashes as a lot as they did,” she stated. “It’s a bit onerous whenever you’re, like, surrounded by cameras and stuff, not, not wanting to observe that.”

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(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Instances)

Johnson is aware of the heartbreak the Olimpia delle Tofane course can convey. 4 years in the past, throughout a apply run inside weeks of the 2022 Beijing Olympics, she endured a brutal crash right here and suffered a devastating knee harm, lacking the Video games.

“I don’t declare to know what she’s going by way of,” she stated of Vonn, “however I do know what it's to be right here, to be preventing for the Olympics and to have this course burn you, and to observe these desires die. It was some of the heartbreaking moments of my life.

“I can’t think about the ache that she’s going by way of. And it’s not the bodily ache — we will cope with bodily ache — however the emotional ache is one thing else. I want her the very best, and I hope that this isn’t the tip.”

When Johnson was rising up, her nickname was “Breezy,” reportedly a reference to the pace and finesse of her snowboarding. Her given title was Breanna, however her dad and mom legally modified it to Breezy when she was ending highschool.

She has weathered a number of accidents all through her profession, and served a 14-month competitors ban issued by the U.S. Anti-Doping Company from October 2023 to December 2024 after lacking three drug exams throughout a 12-month interval.

For her, Sunday was a brand new starting. The Jackson, Wyo., native had by no means gained a World Cup occasion, but now she joins Vonn as one among two American girls to win gold within the Olympic downhill.

“Individuals are jealous of individuals with Olympic gold medals,” Johnson stated. “They’re not essentially jealous of the journey it took to get these medals. I don’t suppose my journey is one thing that many individuals are envious of, and it’s been, it’s been a tricky highway, however generally you simply must preserve going, as a result of that’s the one possibility.

“And , in case you’re going by way of hell, you retain strolling, since you don’t wish to simply sit round in hell. And generally, whenever you preserve going, possibly you’ll make it again to the highest.”