USA’s Breezy Johnson wins Olympic women’s downhill as Lindsey Vonn crashes out

American Breezy Johnson won the Olympic women’s downhill title in Cortina d’Ampezzo on a mixed day for the US team, as teammate Lindsey Vonn suffered a horror crash.

Johnson, the reigning downhill world champion, was the sixth racer to set off and she set the time to beat with a risky, attacking run on the Olympia delle Tofane slope.

She finished in 1.36:10 and would not be overhauled, winning the first medal of the Games for Team USA. She is only the second American woman to win the downhill title, after Vonn in Vancouver 2010.

Germany’s Emma Aicher, a downhill World Cup winner this season, took silver. The 22-year-old was just four-hundredths of a second off the American’s time.

Vonn was the 13th of 36 racers to take to the Cortina d’Ampezzo course, where she has won a record 12 World Cups.

But she crashed hard in the top section of the course after overshooting a turn and catching her shoulder on the fourth gate, having already picked up significant speed. That set her off balance, with her injured left leg - which has no functioning ACL - giving way.

Medics attended to her shortly after and she was put on a stretcher and airlifted to hospital while the competition was paused. It eventually resumed around 20 minutes later.

Home hope Sofia Goggia was the second athlete on the course after Vonn’s horrible crash and despite the difficult circumstances flew down the slope to take bronze, 0.59 seconds behind Johnson.

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The Italian was roared on by the crowd and now has the full set of Olympic downhill medals after gold in 2018 and silver in Beijing four years ago.

Johnson, a friend of Vonn’s, was emotional throughout the second half of the race, with her victory overshadowed by the 41-year-old’s serious crash.

She said afterwards: “My heart aches for her. It’s a tough road and it’s a tough sport. That’s the beauty and the madness of it, that it can hurt you so badly but you keep coming back for more.”

US Ski and Snowboard said Vonn “will be evaluated by medical staff”.

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Johnson missed the 2022 Winter Olympics after tearing her ACL just a month before the Games, and only returned to competition in 2024 after a 14-month ban imposed by USADA for three whereabouts failures in a 12-month period.

The majority of the racers got down the course safely. Austria’s Nina Ortlieb also crashed but was able to get up unassisted, but Andorra’s Cande Moreno - who had previously undergone ACL surgery - went down on the quickest part of the course, hitting her knee hard, and was also airlifted to hospital.