Cortina d’Ampezzo (Italy) (AFP) – Newly-crowned Olympic downhill champion Breezy Johnson said her heart ached for Lindsey Vonn after witnessing her American teammate crash heavily out of alpine skiing’s blue riband event on Sunday. Johnson is now world and Olympic champion in her favoured discipline after mastering the Olimpia delle Tofane piste in Cortina d’Ampezzo to pip Germany’s Emma Aicher by 0.04 sec.
But her wild run down was soon followed by images of Vonn being put in a stretcher to be evacuated by helicopter after smashing into the snow face first and rolling down the slope with her skis still attached. Vonn had bravely attempted to compete for medals at the Milan-Cortina Games at the age of 41 and with no anterior cruciate ligament in her left knee following a crash in the last World Cup downhill before the Olympics.
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“The work that we put in, the careers…my heart aches for her,” Johnson told reporters. “It’s a tough road and it’s a tough sport. I think that that’s the beauty of the madness of it: that it can hurt you so badly but you keep coming back.” The 30-year-old added that she didn’t have any information on Vonn’s condition, but said that “her coach said that she was cheering for me in the helicopter.”
“I hope for the best for her. I hope that it’s not too bad…it’s such a brutal sport sometimes,” she said. Johnson admitted that she had celebrated so wildly that she damaged her medal, showing reporters that it had separated from the ribbon and broken a connecting clip. “I’m sure somebody will fix it. It’s not like crazy broken,” said a sheepish Johnson.
Johnson said that she will be taking part in the women’s team combined on Tuesday but doesn’t yet know with whom she will compete. She won gold in the event at last year’s world championships alongside Mikaela Shiffrin, who arrived in Cortina on Saturday. Italian speed specialist Sofia Goggia had been hotly tipped on her favourite piste but could only take bronze after being forced to wait for her run while Vonn was whisked away to hospital.
“There was a race before the wait, then another race,” said Goggia. “It wasn’t easy…but I was lucky in some respects because I managed to stay focused on myself, and the fact that I didn’t know what the other girls did helped me stay within myself.”
“I don’t want to make excuses but the sun today was very hot and I definitely did not race down the firm, compact and aggressive surface I felt during the (pre-race) inspection.” Goggia has now won downhill medals in all three of her Olympics, being crowned champion in 2018, and will have another shot at gold in the super-G on Thursday.
© 2024 AFP
