Olympic gold medalist Breezy Johnson capped the downhill season by coming the closest she ever has to winning a World Cup race.
Johnson finished runner-up in the World Cup Finals downhill to Italian Laura Pirovano in Kvitfjell, Norway, on Saturday.
The deficit — 15 hundredths of a second — was the smallest of Johnson’s 11 career World Cup podiums — all second- and third-place finishes.
“Obviously, I wanted that World Cup win, but Lolli was faster today,” Johnson said, according to the International Ski and Snowboard Federation. “And you know, that’s the great thing about this sport, it’s that the clock doesn’t lie, and so there’s nobody to be mad at but yourself.”
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Pirovano continued her post-Olympic dominance, winning a third consecutive downhill on the circuit. The 28-year-old came into the season with no World Cup podiums and ends it as the downhill season champion.
The primary storyline of the World Cup Finals is the competition for the overall season title — the biggest annual prize in the sport. Points are accumulated from every race over the October-to-March World Cup season.
Mikaela Shiffrin, bidding for a female record-tying sixth career overall title, went into the last four races of the 37-race season with a 140-point lead on German Emma Aicher.
The Finals feature one race in each discipline: Saturday’s downhill, then Sunday’s super-G, Tuesday’s slalom and Wednesday’s giant slalom.
Each race winner receives 100 points on a descending scale — 80 points for second place, 60 points for third, 50 for fourth, 45 for fifth and so on.
Aicher, who races all four disciplines, had a chance Saturday to gain significantly on Shiffrin, who didn’t race downhill this season.
Aicher, who is second in the season downhill standings and the Olympic downhill silver medalist behind Johnson, finished fifth on Saturday.
She chopped Shiffrin’s lead to 95 points and may need to gain even more in Sunday’s super-G, which Shiffrin is expected to race. That’s because the last two races are in Shiffrin’s best events of giant slalom and slalom.
Skiing to a World Cup podium and her best downhill rank ever (!!) @_BreezyJohnson ladies and gentlemen 😮💨#stifelusskiteam pic.twitter.com/S6SVX1UgE3
— U.S. Ski & Snowboard Team (@usskiteam) March 21, 2026
