Breezy Johnson says 'incredible' Lindsey Vonn went into Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics 'with her eyes open' to the risks

Breezy Johnson hailed Lindsey Vonn's "incredible" achievements through her storied skiing career and said the 41-year-old was aware of the risks she faced skiing at the Winter Olympics. Vonn has returned home to the United States after undergoing multiple surgeries in Italy on her left leg following a serious crash in the women's downhill. Johnson also spoke about her downhill gold medal.

Team USA's Breezy Johnson hailed her "incredible" compatriot Lindsey Vonn and said the 41-year-old skiing great knew the "risk" she was taking by competing at the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics.

Johnson stormed to victory in the women's downhill in northern Italy while Vonn - who was making her first Olympic Games appearance since PyeongChang 2018 - crashed early in her run.

Vonn, who was racing nine days after rupturing her anterior cruciate ligament (ACL), has offered several updates on the "complex tibia fracture" she sustained from her crash, having undergone multiple surgeries in Italy. She said on Tuesday she had returned home to the United States.

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And Johnson, who shared a warm embrace with Vonn after their downhill practice run, was full of praise for her team-mate.

"Everything that she's done before that is incredible," Johnson said.

"I think that, as athletes, we have to make decisions with what we know, and you never know the future and you have to accept that sometimes that's the risk that you take, and she definitely knew that going in and [she] went to it with her eyes open.

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"I wish her the best. I think it's a tough scenario, I don't pretend to know what she's going through, but I know what I went through and, yeah, it's hard."

Vonn has received widespread support from the sporting world since her injury, with the likes of tennis stars Coco Gauff and Naomi Osaka as well as David Beckham paying tribute.

After her ruptured ACL, Vonn promised to "make it to the start gate" and made good on her pledge, despite being unable to cap her remarkable Alpine skiing return with a medal.

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Johnson, meanwhile, had an eventful time in Tofane with her gold medal, which subsequently broke, before missing out on a team combined medal alongside Mikaela Shiffrin in a shock result, and was proposed to by her now fiancé after crashing out of the super-G.

The 30-year-old said she has always worked on the basis of not being defined by her medals.

"There's always been huge moments at the Games," Johnson said. "There's always been huge amounts of pressure.

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"I think people see it a lot. I think people internalise it. I think that that's a difficulty and a challenge, but I've just always tried to live my life and career in a way where I'm not defined by a gold medal.

"I'm defined by the moments in the work that made the gold medal. And so that's kind of how I operate but everybody's a little bit different.

"And I think in many ways there's just so much larger of a spotlight and so I think sometimes people just see more of those moments and feel the humanity behind it where maybe they wouldn't have in the past."

Johnson also commented on her proposal, which got the seal of approval from US pop star Taylor Swift in a social media post which gained huge traction.

"The proposal was planned," she said. "I mean, he put work into that. I had talked about wanting to get proposed to at the Olympics.

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"The downhill was also planned. That was sort of a lifetime of work. I didn't have somebody who I'd planned out with Taylor Swift's team that she was going to comment or that, you know, I don't know, half a million people or something were going to like it.

"But yeah, here we are. And I definitely didn't plan to break the medal either, so that wasn't a plan."

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