Breezy Johnson is the American alpine ski racer who won the Olympic gold medal in women’s downhill at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy, on February 8, 2026. Johnson finished in a time of 1:36.10, edging Germany’s Emma Aicher by four hundredths of a second, according to Olympics.com. Italy’s Sofia Goggia took the bronze.
Johnson, 30, became just the second American woman ever to win the Olympic downhill gold medal, joining Lindsey Vonn, who won at Vancouver in 2010, according to NBC News. The victory came on the same Tofane course where Johnson tore cartilage in her knee during a January 2022 training crash, an injury that forced her to miss the Beijing Olympics.
“I had a good feeling about today,” Johnson said after her victory, according to Olympics.com. “I sort of still can’t believe it yet, so I don’t know when it will sink in.”
Johnson is also the reigning world champion in downhill and team combined, having won both gold medals at the 2025 World Championships in Saalbach, according to Team USA. She won the team combined alongside Mikaela Shiffrin.
Here’s what you need to know about Breezy Johnson’s family:
1. Breezy Johnson’s Parents Are Greg Johnson & Heather Noble — They Met While Skiing in Jackson Hole & Raised Their Kids on the Western Slope of Teton Pass
GettyBreezy Johnson of Team United States in action during the Women’s Downhill on day two of the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics at Tofane Alpine Skiing Centre on February 8, 2026 in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy.
Breezy Johnson’s father is Greg Johnson and her mother Heather Noble. Her parents met while skiing in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, according to NBC Sports’ Tim Layden.
Breezy Johnson’s dad, Greg Johnson, originally from New Hampshire, was an alpine racer himself. He worked on local ski area race crews and supervised a construction crew, Buckrail reported. Breezy Johnson’s mom, Heather Noble, originally from Washington, D.C., is an attorney who relocated west, according to Buckrail.
The family settled on the western slope of Teton Pass in Victor, Idaho, just across the Wyoming state line from Jackson Hole. Both parents worked in Wyoming, and the kids went to school there. The arrangement came with unique challenges: the mountain pass between Idaho and Wyoming occasionally closed on short notice due to avalanches, sometimes stranding the children on the wrong side of the state line. “Sometimes they’d spend the night with a cousin in Wyoming,” Heather told NBC Sports in 2021. “Sometimes we’d say, ah, screw it, we’ll drive around it, which is like 100 miles.”
Greg Johnson taught both of his children to ski in the family’s driveway, which had a small incline, enough for their first glides on snow at age 3. “Dad pushed her,” Heather told NBC Sports, “and I was at the receiving end.”
2. Breezy Johnson’s Parents Legally Changed Her Name From Breanna to Breezy — The Nickname Came From Her Grandmother
GettyGold medallist US’ Breezy Johnson poses with her team after the podium ceremony of the women’s downhill event during the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games at the Tofane Alpine Skiing Centre in Cortina d’Ampezzo on February 8, 2026.
Johnson was born Breanna Noble Johnson on January 19, 1996, in Jackson, Wyoming, during a blizzard. For the first two years of her life, her parents called her Breanna.
Then her grandmother stepped in with an idea. “She said, ‘I had this neighbor with a daughter named Breanna, and they call her Breezy,'” Heather Noble told the Seattle Times in 2018. “And I thought, ‘That’s perfect. That’s who the kid is.'”
The nickname stuck, and shortly before she graduated from high school at Rowmark Ski Academy in Salt Lake City in 2013, her parents made it official, legally changing her first name from Breanna to Breezy, according to The Seattle Times.
3. Breezy Johnson’s Older Brother Finn Was Her First Ski Rival — Growing Up, They Were ‘Pains in the Butt’ at Every Resort
Johnson has an older brother, Finn Johnson, who is 20 months her senior. Finn Johnson was her earliest competitor on the slopes, and the sibling rivalry helped forge the fearless mentality that would carry Breezy Johnson to the top of the sport.
“Her biggest ski rival at the time was her brother, Finn,” according to Johnson’s Team USA bio. Like Breezy, Finn learned to ski in the family’s driveway at age 3 and spent his childhood racing at Jackson Hole, Grand Targhee and Snow King Mountain.
Johnson told 1889 Magazine in 2018 that having a competitive older brother pushed her from the start. “My brother and I were pains in the butt to any resort we were at,” she recalled.
Johnson entered her first ski race at 5, according to her personal website, with a stuffed fox shoved into her purple bib snow pants. She threw away a participation ribbon at one race because she only wanted awards she had earned.
Growing up in the Teton Valley also meant growing up with Mikaela Shiffrin, who was just a year older and training at nearby Burke Mountain Academy in Vermont. “Mikaela was incredibly good, just outstanding, just beat the field, total domination,” Noble told NBC Sports. “Breezy wanted to be that way, and she found a lot of inspiration from seeing this girl who was a year older than she was who was skiing so well.”
At 13, Johnson left Victor for the Rowmark Ski Academy in Salt Lake City, a move that was itself a family compromise. She had originally wanted to attend Burke Mountain Academy after watching Shiffrin’s success, but her parents balked at sending her more than 2,000 miles away, the Seattle Times reported. Rowmark, closer to home, became the middle ground.
4. Breezy Johnson, Who Came Out as Bisexual in 2022, Talked About Her Boyfriend in a Recent Interview
On November 7, 2022, Johnson publicly came out as bisexual in an Instagram post that was also announced by U.S. Ski & Snowboard.
“So I’m bisexual,” Johnson wrote. “Before this season starts I wanted to be open about who I am. To those 🏳️🌈 people out there who feel a little different and want to see people like them at the top I am here to represent that we are out there, we are normal, and we can do whatever we want. To the trolls who want to hate, hate doesn’t beat love.”
The post drew immediate support from across the ski world, including from Lindsey Vonn, Jessie Diggins, Atomic Skis and Jackson Hole Mountain Resort, according to SnowBrains. U.S. Ski & Snowboard president Sophie Goldschmidt said the organization was “very proud to have her represent our team and our country and now the LGBTQIA+ community.”
Johnson was already recovering from the January 2022 knee injury at the time, and told Team USA in December 2022 that the decision was about showing others in the LGBTQ community that they belong at the highest level of the sport. “The reason why I wanted to share it was because growing up there weren’t people like me out there and the straight white ski racing world is large — I just wanted to show that people can be different and people can still be good,” Johnson said.
She also made clear that she didn’t want her sexuality to overshadow her skiing. “I would hope people credit my work ethic and my results, and not some announcement,” Johnson told Team USA.
Johnson was one of eight openly LGBTQ athletes on Team USA at the 2026 Winter Olympics, according to Out Magazine.
In a recent Q&A with NBC Olympics published on the eve of the downhill, Johnson mentioned that her boyfriend sent her flowers for her 30th birthday in January.
5. She Grew Up Minutes From Jackson Hole & Gives Back Through Coombs Outdoors, Which Helps Underprivileged Kids Get Into Skiing
Johnson grew up in Victor, Idaho, a small town of fewer than 3,000 people on the western slope of Teton Pass. The family was minutes from Jackson Hole Mountain Resort and about 20 miles from Grand Targhee, according to the Seattle Times. She also raced at Snow King Mountain, the small town hill in Jackson that has served as a training ground for local racers for decades.
Off the slopes, Johnson is deeply involved with Coombs Outdoors, a Jackson Hole nonprofit that helps get underprivileged kids into skiing and year-round outdoor activities. The organization was founded in 2012 by Emily Coombs in memory of her late husband, legendary extreme skier Doug Coombs, who died in a skiing accident in La Grave, France, in 2006. Coombs Outdoors now serves more than 450 kids annually in Teton County, most of whom come from Latino families whose parents don’t ski, according to the organization’s website.
“I feel like all of us love skiing, and we want to see more people love skiing,” Johnson told the Jackson Hole News & Guide in 2024 at a Coombs fundraiser. “It’s great to see that get shared with a greater number of people in the community.”
Johnson also supports Protect Our Winters, a climate advocacy organization focused on preserving winter environments, according to her personal website. And she serves as an Athlete Liaison for the U.S. Ski Team, elected by her peers to advocate for athletes within the team structure.
Her parents didn’t attend her 2018 Olympic debut in PyeongChang in South Korea.
“In four years, she’ll be more at the peak of her career. Now she’s just breaking in,” Heather Noble told the Seattle Times in 2018. “You try to have that attitude — that this is not a sprint, this is a marathon. I want her to be racing 10 years from now, like Lindsey Vonn is.”
Eight years later, Johnson is an Olympic champion — and Vonn, racing on a ruptured ACL, crashed on the same Cortina course during the same event.
“I don’t claim to know what she’s going through, but I do know what it is to be here, to be fighting for the Olympics, and to have this course burn you and to watch those dreams die,” Johnson said after the race, according to CBC Sports. “I can’t imagine the pain that she’s going through. And it’s not the physical pain — we can deal with physical pain. But the emotional pain is something else.”
Breezy Johnson’s Family: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know