Breezy Johnson adds engagement ring to Olympic gold after fiance proposes
CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy — Breezy Johnson is coming home with more than just an Olympic gold medal.
The new downhill champion got engaged on Thursday (Feb. 12) after the super-G, her final race of the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Games. As Johnson’s teammates surrounded them in the finish area, Connor Watkins got down on one knee in the snow and proposed.
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“I had told him that I had always dreamed of being nominated for the Olympics, so I had an idea,” Johnson said.
When asked why, Johnson said there was talk of a teammate getting engaged during her first Olympics, in 2018, and that has stuck with her ever since.
“It seemed fitting to combine two of my loves,” she said. “And I don’t know, it’s a special place in the Olympics. I feel like there’s a lot of mystery around it.
“And you get free photos too!”
The couple has been together for almost two and a half years and Watkins said he has been planning this for about a year. He had the ring custom made – a blue sapphire set between two bands of white gold, one of which is filled with white sapphires – and made sure his whole family was there.
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He even had a plan B in case the finish zone didn’t work out.
“You never know how the day is going to go. Sometimes the mountain will be unforgiving,” Watkins said.
Watkins also gave Johnson a note with lyrics from Taylor Swift’s “The Alchemy,” which is said to be about her romance with Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce. Johnson said it was fitting because the song came out about the time they moved in together, and it’s about a poet and an athlete.
“I feel like he’s the poet and I’m the sportsman,” Johnson said, smiling. “I feel like it’s so fitting. … I feel like we always hear the song and we smile and think of each other.
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“So it’s really special for us.”
Johnson was one of 17 skiers who did not complete the super-G today. But she collected Team USA’s first medal of these Games by winning the women’s downhill earlier this week.
And now she has an engagement ring too.
“I mean, who doesn’t want to walk away with a few pieces of metal?” » Johnson joked.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Breezy Johnson gets engaged after Olympic super-G race in Cortina
