Americans Breezy Johnson and Lauren Macuga made an Alpine skiing World Cup downhill podium on back-to-back days in Kvitfjell, Norway.
On Friday, Johnson made her first World Cup podium in three years in her first top-level race since winning two gold medals at the World Championships.
Austrian Cornelia Hütter won by 15 hundredths of a second over German Emma Aicher. Johnson was four tenths back.
“I definitely risked a lot,” Johnson told Austrian broadcaster ORF. “I kind of paid for it in a couple of spots, so I was a little surprised with the result.”
Johnson was followed by American teammates Jackie Wiles (eighth place), Lindsey Vonn (13th) and Macuga (15th). The U.S. put four women in the top 15 of a World Cup downhill for the first time since January 2018.
Johnson, 29, previously made seven World Cup downhill podiums in 2020 and 2021, all second- and third-place finishes.
She did not make another top-level podium until winning the world title in the downhill three weeks ago.
In the three-plus years in between, Johnson missed the 2022 Olympics after tearing cartilage in her right knee in a training crash. She also served a 14-month ban in 2023 and 2024 for failing to properly provide her whereabouts for out-of-competition drug testing.
Athletes can be banned up to two years for whereabouts failures. Johnson’s level of fault was “relatively low given the circumstances of the case,” according to the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency.
Johnson spent much of 2024 training separate from the U.S. team due to the terms of the suspension. It took eight races this season for her to break back into the top 10 of a World Cup race.
She then placed fourth in the last World Cup downhill before the World Championships. At worlds, she earned two gold medals, also pairing with Mikaela Shiffrin to win the new team combined event, which makes its Olympic debut in 2026.
In Saturday’s downhill, Macuga made her first World Cup podium in the discipline. Aicher won the race, with Macuga three hundredths behind. Johnson was 10th, Wiles 14th and Vonn 16th.
Macuga, 22, had made her first World Cup podium in winning a Jan. 12 super-G, becoming the youngest American to win a World Cup speed race since Lindsey Vonn in 2007. She also shared bronze in the super-G in her senior World Championships debut on Feb. 6.
Now she’s the youngest American to record a World Cup podium in both speed events (downhill and super-G) since Julia Mancuso (first did so in 2006) and Vonn (first did so in 2004).
“To think that I was able to get my skiing in my downhill to be the same as my super-G is insane,” Macuga told ORF. “I’m hoping it holds.”
Macuga and Johnson are ranked Nos. 4 and 7 in the World Cup downhill standings through six of eight scheduled races this season. The World Cup continues with a super-G on Sunday in Kvitfjell airing on Skiandsnowboard.live.
