LAKE LOUISE Breezy Johnson Photo: GEPA pictures

Back from injury, the downhiller aims to leave nothing on the table this season

Breezy Johnson is picking up where she left off with her speed, strength, and goals. After recovering from an ACL reconstruction, meniscus and cartilage repair in her right knee last February, the 26-year-old from Jackson, Wyo., is soaring in both mind and body. Wrapping up the prep period in Copper Mountain, Colo., Johnson is in a much better place than she was last spring after missing the Olympics and the majority of her season. She’s barreling into 2022-23 without holding back.

“Skiing does put me in a better mental place,” she says. “Every day I get out to ski is really good. The last few days with downhill training have been awesome, going off of jumps and going fast. We have been bonding well as a team. We’ve been really close.”

Team togetherness

With Jackie Wiles, Alice Merryweather and Alix Wilkinson recovering from injury, the U.S. women’s World Cup speed team has slimmed down to Johnson, Lauren Macuga, Keely Cashman, Bella Wright and Mikaela Shiffrin. As Shiffrin has been juggling tech racing and training into her schedule, the other four team members have spent a lot of time together during the prep season.

The women’s speed crew recently launched a new TikTok handle (@usspeedgals) that has provided additional laughs.

“We’re having fun putting content up. Some is about skiing; some is not,” Johnson says. “I have zero rhythm. We’re working on it. People should stay tuned if they want to see me dancing.”

Prep success

Skiing in a knee brace, Johnson kicked out of the start house this November in an FIS super-G at Copper. It was her first race since the injuries in January sidelined her for the Olympics and the remainder of last season. Competing against a stacked international field, she finished sixth.

“The knee feels super good,” she says. “I dislike the knee brace. I’m going to train without it, and if it feels good, we’ll go from there. I try not to compare myself to previous seasons because I’m always trying to get better, but I definitely feel like things are improving.”

Johnson was ranked No. 2 in the World Cup downhill standings and podiumed in every downhill race she finished until her injuries in January. In the recent FIS SG race, won by Austria’s Cornelia Huetter, Johnson finished ahead of reigning downhill champion Sofia Goggia. She is cautious, however, about putting too much stock in how anyone is performing before the true race season begins.

“Copper times can be very misleading. You can be like, oh, I’m going to kill it, then you go to the first race and get hosed by everyone,” Johnson says. “I’ve seen certain people come to Copper skiing super fast and then done so badly in races that their nation didn’t let them start the rest of the World Cup season.”

Visit from Vonn

Johnson and the U.S. women received an extra boost of coaching and confidence thanks to Lindsey Vonn and Alice McKennis Duran, who stopped by Copper to impart their wisdom.

“Lindsey knows a lot about the technique of skiing fast,” Johnson says. “If you look at photos and videos of Lindsey throughout her career, she was often not what people would look at as a textbook fast skier. She has a good eye for what turns to make and when. Her ability to read a specific course and find where she could make time was amazing. She was telling us those things.”

Speaking of Vonn, one of Johnson’s significant aspirations in her career is to emulate her former teammate when she led a podium sweep of the 2014 Lake Louise downhill with Stacey Cook in second and Julia Mancuso third.

Visions of podium sweep

“I was on the Europa Cup team when the World Cup team did that. Ever since I saw that, I was like, I want to do that,” Johnson says. “Everybody is working hard for it. It takes a lot for the cards to align perfectly in one day. I think if everyone races the way they’ve been training, it’s possible. We’ve got at least four podium-worthy speed girls. Nothing beats being up there with your teammates.”

Lake Louise is historically a place where the U.S. Team has landed a heap of success over the years. As for rumors of the venue being removed from the World Cup calendar, Johnson hopes it doesn’t happen. After all, she nabbed back-to-back downhill podiums at the Canadian venue last season. There are also logistical reasons for the beloved stop to remain on the calendar.

The case for keeping Lake Louise

“Europe has unstable weather through Christmas. Lake Louise is really reliable. If you look at the number of races canceled there, it’s really low,” she says.

If new World Cup venues are added to the calendar, Johnson would like to see them close to home.

“I am hopeful that if Lake Louise were to go away, we’d get another women’s event in the U.S. Maybe Jackson Hole? I’d love to see it. They still need to build a lot of A-nets for the course. Building speed courses is expensive. If anyone is rich and reading this, it’s something to think about.”

With so many international speed teams already training in North America, Johnson believes it makes sense objectively to consider another event somewhere in the Rocky Mountains.

“We as a women’s team are bummed that men got two speed races in the U.S. this year, but we still have zero. It’s a process. I hope we find reliable and sensible places to run World Cups and keep the schedule even across all disciplines. I’ve long hoped that Lake Louise would not go away and we could run a race in Jackson after Lake Louise. The period between Thanksgiving and Christmas is ideal for U.S. ski resorts. They’re not super busy before the Christmas rush.”

End goals

Regardless of how the calendar shapes up or how her teammates’ potential for podiums shakes out, Johnson’s personal goals have not changed.

“I still want to win the title. It’s something I’ve been working for my whole career. I’ve wanted to be the best downhill skier in the world for a long time. Having those seasons line up – that’s not guaranteed. I know that from the last two seasons. I have not had as much training as a lot of people on the World Cup. I definitely don’t want to leave things on the table and say I’m not going for the title this year. You don’t know if you’ll have a next year.”