American skier Breezy Johnson told CBS News she’s been treating her replacement gold medal with care after the original, which she won in the women’s downhill event at the 2026 Winter Games in Italy on Saturday, broke.
“I think that because they were so heavy, the ribbons couldn’t really hold them,” Johnson said, calling it “a little disappointing” that Olympic medal winners had to be careful about celebrating too enthusiastically, as it’s “all anybody wants to do.”
Johnson said she was initially told she wouldn’t get her original medal back, but it has been fixed, and she plans to keep it and trade in the replacement. She also plans to knit a special pouch to keep it safe.
“I am an avid knitter,” Johnson told CBS News correspondent Seth Doane on Wednesday. “I knit a new hat or headband for every race. It’s a big superstition of mine.”
She only wears her special handknit race accessories once, for their respective race, after which they are retired.
“They’re piling up in my bags, but I’ve been wanting for a long time to, like, auction some of them off and, like, have people buy them and donate the proceeds to charity,” she said. “I don’t have anything else to do with them.”
Andy Wong / AP 
Johnson dedicated the gold medal to her father.
“He found out that he can never ski again,” she told CBS News. “You know, he taught me to ski. I thought that the best thing that I could do was try to ski as fast as I could.”
Asked about her views on representing the United States, given political debate around the Games, Johnson declined to go down that slope.
“There’s been a lot of rhetoric. I personally prefer to focus on my skiing. I personally don’t know anybody who has changed their political affiliation because of something that any celebrity or person said. So, I personally prefer to focus on my skiing and donate the money that I make to charities that I feel are actually doing the work that I support.”
Despite winning the first gold medal for Team USA in Italy, the Milano-Cortina Winter Games haven’t been a total success story for Johnson.
She failed to make the podium after skiing with teammate Mikaela Shiffrin in the team slalom event Tuesday. After the race, Johnson could be seen speaking with Shiffrin, delivering what looked like a pep talk.
“I said, ‘I know you tried your best and it’s gonna be OK,'” Johnson told CBS News of the private chat. “I don’t, like, hold any of that against anyone because I know this sport. There’s so many variables, and there were variables yesterday, too. They weren’t necessarily in our favor, and we went out and we both gave it our all, and it didn’t happen, but that’s OK.”
Johnson said she’s generally pretty good at coping with the pressure of competing at the highest level of her sport — and she understands that such competition, and such extreme speeds, come with extreme danger.
After Team USA’s Lindsey Vonn was injured in a fall in the downhill race Saturday, which Johnson went on to win, she said her 41-year-old world champion teammate texted her.
“She said, ‘congratulations,'” Johnson said. “You know, I know what she’s going through is hard, and I think she’s dealing with a lot. So, we haven’t spoken, like, on the phone or anything, but I wish her the best.”
Johnson said she also understands what drove Vonn to compete in these Games just a week after rupturing her ACL.
“Part of what breaks your heart is that you’re used to defying the odds. You’re used to writing fairytale endings. And the reality is that those things get made into movies because they’re so unlikely. And unfortunately, you can’t always — it’s not always like the movies,” she said.
“It’s difficult to understand what moves people to do it, but when you’re doing it well, it’s a pretty incredible feeling,” Johnson said, describing the sport of downhill as “counterintuitive” and saying that spectators can share in the rush.
“Eighty-five miles an hour, nothing to protect you except spandex, combining in gigantic blades on your feet, which people sometimes seem to forget,” she said. “It’s like Formula One on ice, with giant knives, who doesn’t want to watch that?”
