American Breezy Johnson shows her gold medal in the alpine ski women's downhill race at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, on Sunday. (AP photo)

MILAN — The crash. The gasps. The helicopter.

Lindsey Vonn’s frightening fall in the women’s downhill at the Milan Cortina Olympics couldn’t help but overshadow U.S. teammate Breezy Johnson’s feat — winning her country’s first gold medal at these Games.

Johnson’s victory Sunday in Cortina wasn’t the Olympic comeback story everyone expected, as the focus was on Vonn going for gold despite a torn ACL. Even as Johnson sat in the leader’s box on the verge of securing her first Olympic gold medal, her emotions swung from anticipation to anguish when Vonn went down.

“It was one of the most heartbreaking moments of my life,” Johnson said.

Still, the 30-year-old Johnson became only the second American woman to win the Olympic downhill — Vonn won it in 2010 — and it came after her own injury concerns as well as a 14-month ban for violating “whereabouts” rules when it comes to testing for doping.

Sometimes, she said, “you just have to keep going because that’s the only option.”

NHL arrives

Five charter planes carrying NHL players — including Canada’s Sidney Crosby — arrived in Milan on Sunday morning from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport. This is the first Olympics with NHL players since the Sochi Games in 2014.

Sweden was the first of the teams comprised of almost exclusively NHL players to take the ice for practice at Milano Santagiulia Arena, followed by the U.S., Czechia, Canada and Finland.

The 12-team men’s tournament starts Wednesday. The U.S. and Canada are the heavy favorites, and both teams begin their campaigns Thursday. The Americans face Latvia. Canada plays the Czech Republic.

Finland is the defending champion, but Canada has won each of the past two Olympics with NHL players.

Ledecka upset on snowboard

No surprise that a Czech racer won snowboarding’s parallel giant slalom Sunday in Livigno. The shocker was that it wasn’t Ester Ledecka.

Ledecka, who was trying to become the first snowboarder to win gold medals at three straight Olympics, lost her quarterfinal race by 0.06 seconds to Austria’s Sabine Payer.

The gold medal went to Ledecka’s teammate, 22-year-old Zuzana Maderova. It was her first victory in a major event. Payer took the silver medal. Italy’s Lucia Dalmasso won bronze.

Ledecka hadn’t lost a PGS World Cup race in almost two years.

___

AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics