Shortly after winning her maiden Olympic gold in the women’s downhill at the 2026 Winter Olympics on Sunday, Breezy Johnson joked that she might have set a record for being the fastest athlete to break her medal.
While jumping up and down in celebration after receiving the medal, Johnson realized it had come loose from its lanyard. Olympic officials attempted to fix it but ultimately presented her with a replacement medal that did not have her name engraved.
The 30-year-old has since come close to winning another medal in the women’s team combined event alongside her childhood friend and U.S. alpine skiing icon Mikaela Shiffrin, and she even got engaged to her boyfriend, Connor Watkins, on Thursday. To top it off, Johnson's prized gold medal was finally repaired on the same day she wore her engagement ring for the first time.
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Taking to her Instagram story, Johnson shared that she had received her original medal back after officials repaired the lanyard. "Also, they fixed my medal!!!! Woot! Got the original back."
It has been an incredible campaign for Johnson, who missed the 2022 Beijing Olympics due to a knee injury and was later handed a 14-month doping ban. She redeemed herself by winning two gold medals at the 2025 World Championships and is now just the second American woman to win Olympic downhill gold after Lindsey Vonn.
Johnson came agonizingly close to another medal when she posted the fastest downhill time in the women’s team combined event, but Shiffrin was unable to hold the lead, enduring one of the toughest slalom runs of her career. The duo ultimately placed fourth, missing the podium by just 0.06 seconds.
The Jackson, Wyoming, native had another opportunity on Thursday in the women’s super-G final but suffered a high-speed crash on a challenging Tofane slope. However, she walked away unscathed and found her boyfriend waiting at the finish line with an engagement ring, marking a perfect and dreamy ending to her 2026 Winter Olympics campaign.