Downhill, Women

The first Alpine skiing event for women at this Games was the downhill and it was held on the legendary Olimpia delle Tofane where the men’s downhill race was held at the 1956 Olympics. The resort was first part of the World Cup in 1974 and since 1993 had been a regular host of the women’s World Cup.

The leader of the ongoing downhill World Cup was Lindsey Vonn. The USA superstar came out of retirement in December 2024 after a five-year break during which she had partial knee replacement surgery earlier in 2024. Participating in her fifth Olympics and having won Olympic downhill gold in 2010, she finished on the podium in all five World Cup downhills during the season with wins in St. Moritz 1 and Zauchensee. Other winners of the 2025/26 season were Germany’s Emma Aicher (St. Moritz 2), Austrian Conny Hütter (Val-d’Isère), and Italy’s Nicol Delago (Tarvisio).

Vonn had a bad crash on 30 January in Crans-Montana (SUI) in a race that was cancelled right after her fall due to poor visibility, which was too late for Vonn who had ruptured the ACL in her left knee. Despite her injury she made it to the Games and started the race that she had won six times in the World Cup (2008, 2010, 2013, 2015, 2016, 2018). One of her challengers was Italian Sofia Goggia who had won on the same piste four times including the last race held in 2025. The two training runs saw Americans Jackie Wiles and Breezy Johnson (reigning World Champion from 2025) on top.

Johnson (bib #6) was the first of the top group to start and she took the lead with Aicher (bib #10) coming close and settling in second only 4/100ths of a second behind. Starting with bib #13 Lindsey Vonn’s dramatic season became even worse. After only 13 seconds she clipped a gate and crashed, fracturing her tibia. After a delay of more than 20 minutes while Vonn was airlifted to hospital, the race continued with Goggia securing bronze and Wiles finishing fourth (tied with Hütter). Andorran Cande Moreno also had a bad crash resulting in a torn ACL and MCL in her left knee and also had to be evacuated by helicopter.

Johnson won gold on the same track that prevented her from competing at the 2022 Olympics when she crashed in a training run right before the Beijing Games that ended with cartilage damage in her right knee. She became only the second female Olympic downhill champion for the United States after Vonn. Johnson also became the first skier to win the World Championships and Olympic Games without ever winning a World Cup race.

With her bronze medal Goggia became the first to win three Olympic downhill medals, male or female. She also completed her Olympic medal set in downhill after winning gold in 2018 and silver in 2022 to become the first Alpine skier to win a full set of medals in the same event, although Federica Brignone would match this a few days later in the giant slalom. Manufacturer Atomic took gold and bronze, with silver taken by Head.