The 2026 Winter Olympics are redefining what it means to be a champion. Three Black women recently shared the ice in the Team USA-Canada hockey clash, while skier Breezy Johnson made history as the first U.S. athlete to claim gold. The 30-year-old stated that it felt right to unveil the reality, as people should understand that being a champion isn’t traditional for just “straight White people.” And she didn’t stop there.

“I grew up as a kid who was obsessed with sports, and all I wanted to be was a ski racer,” Johnson said. “So I just did everything that I saw that ski racers were doing. But it also was a world in which everybody was straight. As a bi person, it was very easy for me to just stick a piece of myself in a box. And then, actually, in many ways, seeing Amber Glenn really changed my perspective.”

Further extending her statement on how competing and winning at the Winter Olympics changed her overall perspective, she added:

“I almost had just repressed that side of myself for so long. In seeing her (Amber Glenn) as such a powerful athlete, I started to kind of open that box again. I came to the conclusion that I was bi, and then very quickly thereafter came to the conclusion that I had to tell people that because they deserved to know that the world of champions is not just comprised of straight white people.”

Breezy Johnson’s gold medal in the 2026 Winter Olympics downhill race marked a major comeback in his career. She had crashed on the same Cortina course and lost her chance to compete in the 2022 Games four years ago, having suffered a serious knee injury and faced a long recovery. Many athletes struggle to return after such setbacks, but Johnson stayed focused and kept working.

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Her presence at the Winter Olympics 2026 saw her ski fast and trust her skills, eventually finishing with a final time of 1:36.10. The mark wasn’t just enough to win, beating Germany’s Emma Aicher by a very small margin.

This gold medal was the first Olympic medal of her career and an important moment for Team USA. However, moments of celebration turned into lighthearted regrets as her post-win coverage saw an unexpected event.

Breezy Johnson addresses the embarrassing medal break at the Winter Olympics

Soon after Johnson’s victory, something unexpected happened that surprised everyone, including the Alpine skier herself. While she was jumping and celebrating her win, Breezy’s gold medal suddenly came loose from its ribbon.

She later spoke about the moment with honesty and humor. “It’s definitely heavy. Heavier than I expected,” Breezy Johnson said. “I think that’s maybe why it broke.” Her teammate Keely Cashman also understood how it could happen. “I wasn’t super surprised. I felt the weight of it, so I was like, `That better be a hefty string or whatever was holding it,'” Cashman said.

The problem was not the medal itself, but the small piece connecting the ribbon to the medal. The Milano Cortina medals use a groove system instead of a loop, and that part broke. Johnson stayed calm about it and did not make a big issue. “It’s not crazy broken, but it’s a little broken,” Johnson said.

Since the ribbon could not hold the medal safely, she simply placed it in her pocket while speaking to reporters. She also joked about getting it repaired, saying, “I haven’t really been anywhere else,” Johnson said. “I assume somebody will fix it.”

However, despite the small embarrassing moment, Johnson remained proud of her achievement and is now looking forward to opening up to the world as a measure to inspire more athletes.