US Olympic skier Breezy Johnson has plans for her broken and repaired gold medal

American skier Breezy Johnson told News themezone that she has been treating her new gold medal carefully after the original, which won the women’s downhill event in the 2026 Winter Games in Italy on Saturday, bankrupt.

“I think because they were so heavy, the ribbons couldn’t really hold them up,” Johnson said, calling it “a little disappointing” that Olympic medal winners had to be careful about celebrating too enthusiastically, since it’s “all anyone wants to do.”

Johnson said he was initially told he wouldn’t get his original medal back, but it’s been fixed and he plans to keep it and redeem the replacement. She also plans to weave a special bag to keep it safe.

“I’m an avid knitter,” Johnson told News themezone 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 hand-woven race accessories once, for her respective race, after which they are retired.

“They’re piling up in my bags, but I’ve been wanting to auction some of them off for a while and have people buy them and donate the proceeds to charity,” she said. “I have nothing more to do with them.”

Johnson dedicated the gold medal to his father.

“He found out he’ll never be able to ski again,” he told News themezone. “You know, he taught me how to ski. I thought the best thing I could do was try to ski as fast as I could.”

When asked about his opinion on representing the United States, given political debate Around the Games, Johnson refused to go down that slope.

“There’s been a lot of rhetoric. I personally prefer to focus on my skiing. Personally, I don’t know anyone who has changed their political affiliation because of something a celebrity or person has said. So, personally, I prefer to focus on my skiing and donate the money I make to charities that I believe are actually doing the work that I support.”

Despite winning the first gold medal for team USA In Italy, the Milano-Cortina Winter Games have not been a complete success story for Johnson.

She failed to make the podium after skiing with teammate Mikaela Shiffrin in the team slalom event on Tuesday. After the race, Johnson could be seen talking to Shiffrin, giving her what looked like a pep talk.

“I said, ‘I know you did the best you could and everything will be okay,'” Johnson told News themezone about the private chat. “I don’t hold that against anyone because I know this sport. There are a lot of variables, and yesterday there were variables 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 okay.”

Johnson said she is generally pretty good at handling the pressure of competing at the highest level of her sport, and understands that such extreme competition and speeds come with extreme danger.

After Team USA’s Lindsay Vonn was injured in a fall in Saturday’s downhill race, which Johnson won, she said her 41-year-old world champion teammate texted her.

“She said, ‘congratulations,'” Johnson said. “You know, I know what he’s going through is difficult and I think he’s dealing with a lot of things. So we haven’t talked on the phone or anything like that, but I wish him the best.”

Johnson said he also understands what drove Vonn to compete in these Games just a week after tearing her ACL.

“Part of what breaks your heart is that you are used to defying the odds. You are used to writing fairy tale endings. And the reality is that those things are put into movies because they are so improbable. And unfortunately, it’s not always possible, it’s not always like in the movies,” he said.

“It’s hard to understand what makes people do it, but when you do it right, it’s an incredible feeling,” Johnson said, describing the sport of downhill as “counterintuitive” and saying that spectators can share in the excitement.

“Seventy miles an hour, nothing to protect you except spandex, which combines into giant sheets on your feet, which people sometimes seem to forget,” he said. “It’s like Formula One on ice, with giant knives. Who doesn’t want to see that?”