CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy — Breezy Johnson and Mikaela Shiffrin are teaming up again.
The newest Olympic champion and the two-time Olympic gold medalist are paired for the team combined, which they won at last year’s world championships. The event includes one run of downhill, which Johnson will do, and one run of slalom, which Shiffrin will do.
The other teams for the race on Tuesday, Feb. 10 are:
Jackie Wiles (downhill) and Paula Moltzan (slalom)
Bella Wright (downhill) and Nina O’Brien (slalom)
Keely Cashman (downhill) and A.J. Hurt (slalom)
U.S. Skiing created the teams based on results, which could have meant a highly anticipated pairing of Lindsey Vonn and Shiffrin, two of the most successful Alpine skiers in history. Shiffrin, the all-time leader with 108 World Cup wins, leads the overall and slalom season standings. Vonn, whose 84 World Cup wins trail only Shiffrin and Ingemar Stenmark, leads the downhill standings.
But Vonn broke her left leg in a crash during Sunday’s downhill. Johnson won gold in the race, elevating her to the top spot among the U.S. downhillers.
‘I’m really excited for the team combined. I’m excited to get another crack down the slope,’ Johnson said after winning gold on Sunday, Feb. 8, joining Vonn as the only American women to win the Olympic downhill title.
‘I think it could be a really good event for us,’ Johnson added.
It gives Johnson a chance to duplicate what she did at last year’s worlds. She won the downhill title before pairing with Shiffrin to win the inaugural team combined event.
‘The vibe around it, teaming up and feeling like we’re doing it together, was so cool,’ Shiffrin said last year after they won.
Shiffrin and Johnson have been friends since they were children, and Johnson credits Shiffrin and her mother Eileen for encouraging her to keep going early in her career.
‘In many ways, I don’t know if I would be sitting here without Mikaela because she and her family took me under their wing and allowed me to have confidence in myself,’ Johnson said last fall. ‘We were both very intense kids. People were like, ‘Breezy, you need to chill out. You need to have more fun.’ And I was like, `I don’t understand. I just really like skiing and I like competing and I like getting better.’ And I wasn’t getting anybody who was telling me that.
‘(Mikaela) was like, ‘There’s nothing wrong with you. Keep doing what you’re doing.’ And her mom was like, `No, there’s tons of kids out here. They’re having fun and some of them may be good, but if you do that you will not be good,” Johnson recalled. ‘And that helped me to be like, no, I’m going to be intense. I’m going to be serious. And if people say that that’s wrong, that’s on them.’
Now both are Olympic champions, with the possibility of winning more gold.