Team USA earned its first gold medal on Sunday after a dramatic downhill race headlined by another crash by Lindsey Vonn. Breezy Johnson became the second U.S. skier to ever win the gold medal in the downhill event, earning her spot at the top of the podium 16 years after Vonn took first in the race. Johnson entered Milan Cortina as the reigning downhill world champion. “I sort of still can’t believe it yet, I don’t know when it will sink in yet,” she said. Hours after the women’s event, Johnson revealed that part of her gold medal broke off while she was celebrating the victory. Gold medallist USA’s Breezy Johnson shows her broken medal to the media following the Women’s Alpine Downhill Skiing at the Tofane Alpine Skiing Centre, Cortina d’Ampezzo, on day two of the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics. Picture date: Sunday February 8, 2026. (Photo by Andrew Milligan/PA Images via Getty Images) The medal ribbon had come apart from the gold, she said, holding up the two separate pieces. This was the 30-year-old skier’s first Olympic medal. She had to sit out the last Winter Olympics due to an injury and did not place in the event at the 2018 Games. Johnson talked about the pain of watching her teammate crash only 13 seconds into the final race. “Yeah, I mean, I know what it is for an Olympic dream to die on this slope, and watching that really reminded me of how it felt four years ago, and my heart aches for her. It’s devastating,” Johnson said. ...read more read less