CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy — There was a time last fall when Breezy Johnson feared the Olympics were slipping away.
Again.
She’d gotten E.coli during a preseason training camp. The weakness from that contributed to a back injury that caused some of the worst pain she’d ever felt. The 2026 Winter Olympics were coming up fast, and the helplessness she felt when it was mid-December and she wasn’t getting better was all too familiar.
“It sort of felt at the time like my body was rebelling against the dreams that I had,” Johnson told USA TODAY Sports on Monday, Feb. 9. She missed the Beijing Olympics in 2022 after tearing her ACL a month before the Games.
“That was really emotionally debilitating,” Johnson said. “Not just know that something bad had happened that derailed your dreams, (but) that it felt like your body was fighting against you.”
