CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy — World champion Breezy Johnson was relieved to complete the first training session for the women’s Olympic downhill on Friday but the American was still not about to let down her guard.
Cortina’s Olimpia delle Tofane piste, a gleaming streak down the mountain but shrouded in low cloud on Friday as skiers waited their turn, holds painful memories for the 30-year-old Alpine skier from just before the last Games.
Having qualified for the U.S. team to compete at Beijing 2022, Johnson fell in a training session for a World Cup downhill in Cortina weeks before and suffered a right knee injury that dashed her Olympic dream.
“Because of what happened last time I don’t trust that the Olympics is here until I’m in the finish of the downhill,” she said.
“There’s still a whole other training run and everything else that can happen in between.”
Johnson, eighth in the downhill standings, won her world championship gold on Feb. 8 last year and will be going for Olympic gold again on Sunday. She said there was no temptation to play safe and skip the second training run on Saturday.
“You definitely need to feel out this hill,” she said. “The speeds were definitely low today. You know 1:38, you can look up what the times were last year. I think they were probably 1:34. To be five seconds faster on race day, you’re going to be scared.”
Johnson — sixth fastest in the session with teammate Jacqueline Wiles fastest and 0.66 quicker than Norway’s Kajsa Vickhoff-Lie — said the piste was very soft and even slushy on the bottom and would need more preparation overnight.
Thursday’s first training had to be canceled due to heavy snow and Friday was the first opportunity to scope out the course.
“They definitely need to do a lot more slipping and working on some of the terrain as well, because some of it at really low speeds with the soft snow was kind of on the limit,” said Johnson.
“I think they know what they need to do but we’ll definitely hope that they continue to do that work on the slope before the race.”
–Reuters, special to Field Level Media
