US skier Breezy Johnson marks return from 14-month ban with a gold in world championship downhill

SAALBACH-HINTERGLEMM, Austria (AP) — Her top speed of 86 mph (138.51 kph) was among the fastest ever recorded by a woman in an Alpine skiing race.

The 38 yards (35 meters) that she soared off the big Panorama jump midway down matched how far the men leap off the famed Hundschopf at Wengen in Switzerland.

American skier Breezy Johnson was literally flying in the women’s downhill at the world championships on Saturday.

“Like the Wind” — her personal motto.

And even though she was the first racer down, Johnson immediately knew she had done something special, celebrating her run with fist pumps and turning to salute the crowd in every direction.

About 1½ hours later, Johnson was still saluting the crowd of 15,800 fans who had packed the stands and lined the Ulli Maier course. On the top step of the podium. A “Weltmeisterin” (world champion) in Austria, the home of ski racing.

Not a bad way to earn your first victory.

“I was psyched because I knew that I had skied my best,” the 29-year-old Johnson said. “I’m just going to enjoy this because I’ve had a lot of times where I gave my best and I didn’t win. … You have to be happy with your own skiing or your existence becomes very sad very quickly.”

Johnson finished 0.15 seconds ahead of silver medalist Mirjam Puchner of Austria and 0.21 ahead of bronze medalist Ester Ledecka, the Czech athlete who has won Olympic golds in both skiing and snowboarding.

Lauren Macuga, the American who took bronze in super-G two days earlier, finished fifth. And 40-year-old Lindsey Vonn was 15th.

Vonn (in 2009), Hilary Lindh (in 1997) and Picabo Street (in 1996) are the only other American women to win gold in downhill at worlds.

As the victory began to sink in, Johnson grew emotional as she considered the past few years of her career.

The Jackson Hole, Wyoming, native was on the verge of victory when she recorded three second-place World Cup results over a one-year period ending in December 2021. Then a crash a month later ruled her out of the 2022 Beijing Olympics with a knee injury.

Before the next season, Johnson came out as bisexual. She posted on Instagram at that time: “To those people out there who feel a little different and want to see people like them at the top I am here to represent that we are out there, we are normal, and we can do whatever we want."

But Johnson was then sidelined again when she missed three anti-doping exams and violated “whereabouts” rules that oblige athletes to detail where they can be found for one hour each day to give samples. The violation resulted in a 14-month ban that expired two months ago.

After her victory Saturday, Johnson said the first missed test “was my fault.” For the second one she said she texted her whereabouts to the wrong number. Then for the third missed test, she said “there was a glitch on the app.

“I think a lot of athletes would agree with me to say that it’s a very challenging system,” Johnson said. “I acknowledge that I could have done better.”

Downhill standout Sofia Goggia was unforgiving in her assessment of Johnson’s ban, though.

“We have availability every day. Every night, I have to say where I sleep and I have to give the time slot. I set it between 5 and 6 in the morning and this year at Christmas they came to ring my bell,” Goggia, who finished 16th, said Saturday. “We have rules to follow. We stick to the procedure. Period.”

While she was out, Johnson was not allowed to train with the U.S. team. So she funded her own training in Jackson Hole and in the Alps and hired her own coach, Stefan Abplanalp, as well as experts at setting up training courses.

“Those people really helped me a ton and obviously it was a little bit lonely. But it brought more people into the village,” Johnson said. “So this is also for them.”

Perhaps because of her ban, Johnson has no sponsor on her headgear.

The gold medal might change that, though.

The race was held exactly one year before the Milan-Cortina Olympics women’s downhill, which will be on the track in Cortina d’Ampezzo where Vonn holds the record of 12 World Cup wins and where Jacqueline Wiles, another active American, has finished on the podium twice.

Wiles was also fast before she went off course during her run Saturday.

“We have such a strong team and it’s so cool to be able to do it on a world stage,” Macuga said. “Next year in Cortina…I think it might be pretty exciting.”

The U.S. team is also well poised for Sunday’s men’s downhill, with Ryan Cochran-Siegle having led two of the three training sessions.

“When I’m feeling confident, I feel like I do a good job of stacking the ski at the top of the turn and really driving in and creating power,” said Cochran-Siegle, the Olympic silver medalist in super-G. “I feel like that the tempo is familiar to me. … The light is nice. Just a good venue overall for me.”

___

Associated Press writer Eric Willemsen in Vienna contributed to this report.

___

AP skiing: https://apnews.com/hub/alpine-skiing