Other athletes have won more gold medals at these Milano Cortina Olympics than American ski racer Breezy Johnson, who finished first in the women’s Olympic downhill competition on Feb. 8. For example, her counterpart on the men’s side—Switzerland’s Franjo von Allmen—has three: he swept the downhill, team combined, and super-G.
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Still, has anyone had a better Olympics than Johnson? The Jackson Hole native won one of the most prestigious races at the Games, as the downhill is sort of like the 100-m dash at the Summer Games. What’s more, Johnson, 30, won her Olympic title on the same mountain in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy, where she crashed before the Beijing Games: she tore her ACL and missed those Olympics. Two days after her downhill victory, Johnson skied the fastest time on the downhill portion of the team combined competition (Mikaela Shiffrin’s subpar slalom run cost the Johnson-Shiffrin pairing a medal).
On Thursday, Johnson crashed out of the super-G race. But her day ended on the highest of notes. Her boyfriend, Connor Watkins, proposed to her at the bottom of the Cortina slope. Johnson said yes.
The morning after her whirlwind day, Johnson talked to TIME about her life-changing Games, the mixed emotions of winning a downhill on the same day teammate Lindsey Vonn broke her leg in a scary crash, and her ski-racing future.
(This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity).
We’re speaking at 9 a.m. Italy time the morning after your now-fiancé proposed. Your Olympics ended yesterday. You have a gold medal and now an engagement ring. Weren’t you up late celebrating? Shouldn’t we be having this conversation at 2 in the afternoon?
My family knows I am early to bed, early to rise. I would have loved to have stayed up superlate. We stayed up until what I thought was late, which was like 10, talking.
How did you celebrate?
We did an Italian tradition. You bring a bunch of your family and friends together and you have a little party. And so we got the team together. Connor had the whole thing already set up. We had some champagne, we cut a cake, and then we went and had some pizza.
Were you surprised the proposal happened in the way that it happened?
I mean, you don’t get engaged to somebody in front of the whole world at the Olympics without them telling you a little bit. When we started getting really serious, I was like, “I always kind of had this concept of getting engaged at the Olympics.” I hadn’t really had somebody to talk seriously about it with.
A year ago, he goes, “Are you serious about that?” Growing up, you love the idea of winning the Olympics. But there is something really special about those moments where people share it with the people that they love. And I was like, “What better way than to combine the two loves of my life?”
Then it was on him to plan it. In the end, the Italian President almost ruined the whole thing. He was coming down to the stadium, and then it was like, “Well, you can’t move. The Italian President’s moving.’”
Connor’s words were just so sweet. I just started crying. I had no idea that it was going to go as viral as it did. The whole thing definitely grew legs and ran.
The two of you met on Bumble. He didn’t know you were a professional ski racer. Was that a good thing?
When you’re on dating apps, you want to get to know other people. And it’s kind of hard when the first thing they hear is that you’re an Olympian. Because that’s all they want to know about. I had one ski picture. Because I like to ski and I like people that ski. But I was trying not to be overtly, “Oh my gosh, I’m this big deal.”
We started talking. Then, it’s like, “Well, what do you do?” And I was like, “Oh, I’m a skier.’ And then he goes, “Are you a ski instructor?’” “No, for the U.S. team.” At that point, people’s eyes kind of turn into big washers. They’re like, “Oh my God.” But he was good about it.
Watkins also gave you a piece of wood carved with words from Taylor’s Swift’s song “The Alchemy.” Then Swift congratulated you in the comments of your Instagram post about the engagement, adding another lyric from that song: “Where’s the trophy? He just comes running over to me.” What was your reaction to that?
We were at dinner and somebody said, “Oh my God, Taylor Swift commented.” I was like, “On what?” They said, “Your post.” Then I was like, “I have to find this. I have to see this with my own eyes.” Incredible. I never expected that. It was so cute. We started dating at a similar time as she and Travis Kelce. Then “The Alchemy” came out. We were just moving in together at that point. It’s one of our favorites.
Well, I guess we have to talk about Olympic skiing?
[Laughs]
During your winning downhill run, are you thinking to yourself, “I can feel my speed and know I can win this thing”? Or are you more thinking about trying to get to the finish line safely?
You feel the speed. I also knew that I was a little bit wild in certain places. I got a little bit twisted up. I knew that there’s still terrain all the way to the finish. It wasn’t going to matter that I skied the top well. Once I came across the line, I saw the time, and I was like, “I think that’s for sure good enough for a medal. And it might be gold.” I was definitely pretty psyched.
You were in the leader’s chair when Lindsey crashed. What was that experience like?
I watched her go into that uphill double, and she was really clean and charging. And I was like, “Oh sh-t, this could be a good run.” And then it was immediately over. There’s a speaker. I thought I could hear her screaming in pain. That’s just never something you want as a human being or as a teammate or as a friend. That was hard to hear.
Have you gotten a chance to talk to her?
She texted me the morning after. So we talked a little bit. In my experience, two weeks after is when things get really hard. And so I’m going to wait for things to die down a little bit on her side and then reach out and see how she’s doing.
After you and Mikaela finished fourth in the team combined, you both seemed genuinely happy your teammates Jackie Wiles and Paula Moltzan came away with a bronze. You and Mikaela are close childhood friends. How is she doing before she competes in the giant slalom on Feb. 15 and the slalom on Feb. 18?
It’s hard to lose an Olympic medal. But as an athlete, you can’t go into any event with the expectation that you’re just going to win. I talked to her afterwards, because she felt really bad. She felt like she hadn’t lived up to her side of the bargain. And I was like, “You didn’t go out there being ‘I’m just gonna chill because it should hopefully be fine.’ I could see that you were trying. You’re skiing in really tough conditions. It didn’t work out. In many ways, I felt worse for her. Because I felt like I had the way easier half. Which was basically, just don’t DNF. Mikaela can make up almost any deficit.
She had the much harder challenge. You have the lead. Everybody expects that you should not only be able to win this but dominate it. So I have continued to talk to her and been, “Your process has made you a champ.” The media has been very tough on her. I wanted to jump in there with some of those outlets and say, “Hey, we go out every day and we try. Just because she’s the winningest skier of all time doesn’t mean she wins every day.”
It sucks for you guys that that happens at the Olympics. It feels like that shouldn’t happen, but that is just the reality of the sport. That’s one of the things that makes the sport so amazing. It’s not ever guaranteed.
I just want her to be able to go get her flowers. And it sort of hurts me to see people who use my performance as a means to tear her down more.
There’s an unbelievable stat about you: your only race wins are at last year’s world championships and at this year’s Olympics. You’ve never won a World Cup race. That’s like a golfer never winning a weekly tour stop in Connecticut or Hilton Head, S.C., but then winning a couple of Masters. What makes you rise to the occasion in big moments? Where does Big Game Breezy come from?
In many ways, I just continue to try to do my same plan and try to keep the Olympic Games small. I’m out there every day in the World Cup trying to win. It’s just a testament to how competitive the sport is. I was doing some interviews before the Olympics, and people were like, “You don’t have a podium yet this season.” [Johnson did finish third in a World Cup super-G on Jan. 31]. Blah, blah, blah. Everything has so many variables that all have to come together. They finally did. And hopefully, we can take that ball rolling and show that Big Game Breezy can be Small Game Breezy in the next World Cup.
We’ve spoken about how tough it was to sit out the 2024-2025 season due to suspension for three missed drug tests. You’ve attributed the “whereabouts” violations to human error and said you’ve never intentionally dodged a test. Some critics have knocked your explanation. Do you think this performance erases all questions about what happened?
That’s more for other people to decide. I made an excellent comeback from everything. I was still having anxiety attacks right after the downhill. That because I won Olympic gold, people from WADA were going to see that and be like, like, “There’s no way. We have to figure out how to ban her again. We can’t have this success story after everything that happened.” I’m just grateful to have so many impressive results and things for people to be proud of in front of that suspension.
How long do you plan on skiing? Do your Olympic gold and engagement change the calculus at all?
I have no plans of stopping. Lindsey showed that people can do it a lot longer than anybody thought. I’m going to keep skiing. I definitely would love to do at least another quad. Obviously, the Salt Lake Olympics would be crazy. I have my little cat family. I don’t have any baby fever yet. The cat family is really, very fulfilling to me.
OK, in one word, please describe the Milan Cortina Olympic experience for you.
I’m going to go two. I’m going to go “full circle.” Full circle of family. Full circle of redemption, with the Cortina slope. Yeah. Full circle.