At the Olympics, skier Breezy Johnson won a gold medal — and an engagement ring, too
CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy — The finish line at the 2026 Winter Games has brought Breezy Johnson two of the best moments of her life this week — first, an Olympic gold medal, then on Thursday, a marriage proposal.
Shortly after reaching the bottom of the course at Thursday’s Olympic super-G race, Johnson’s partner, Connor Watkins, was waiting with an engagement ring.
Johnson had always dreamed of getting engaged at the Olympics, she told reporters afterward.
Theirs is a modern love story: They met on the dating app Bumble, Johnson said. For their first date, they went to brunch.
“I had no idea who she was,” Watkins said. “Ten minutes into the conversation, I was, like, ‘Hey, so what do you do?’ And that was an interesting answer at first. I was a little taken aback.”
When they met in 2023, Johnson had already competed in one Olympic Games and qualified for second (before being forced to withdraw after injuring her knee in a pair of crashes in the weeks before the Games). She was a regular in the top ten on the World Cup circuit and had reached the podium seven times.
On Thursday, Watkins, who grew up in Georgia, laughed when asked if he was intimidated initially. “Yeah, absolutely,” he said. “I was like, ‘I’m out-kicking my coverage here.'”
In Thursday’s Olympic super-G race, Johnson was one of 17 racers who recorded a did-not-finish on a difficult course. “I was going for it. I felt like I was skiing pretty well but I knew I was getting a little bit low,” she said. After a jump she lost control, skied over a gate and crashed into the netting — but was able to stand up and ski to the bottom herself.
Watkins, waiting at the bottom with the ring in his pocket, hesitated as he watched her crash. “I’m hoping she’s okay, first and foremost,” he said afterward. “There was a Plan B just in case there needed to be.” A staffer covertly spoke to Johnson to gauge her mood, Watkins said — “to make sure she was still gonna be receptive to a proposal at that time” — he then went ahead with the proposal afterward.
“I was feeling kind of stupid, which is the moment you want the people you love around you,” Johnson said.
“His words were so beautiful,” she said. “I was just crying and thinking about how much I love him.”
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