EMILY KWONG, HOST:
Well, Team USA won its first medals of the Winter Olympics in Milan Cortina today, including a team gold for figure skating. But it was also a day marked by disappointment, as American skiing superstar Lindsey Vonn crashed badly, ending her Olympics comeback quest. Joining us for an update on all the big Olympics news, are NPR's Becky Sullivan in Cortina and Rachel Treisman in Milan. Hi to you both.
BECKY SULLIVAN, BYLINE: Hello.
RACHEL TREISMAN, BYLINE: Hi.
KWONG: Hi. Becky, let's start with you.
SULLIVAN: Sure.
KWONG: A bittersweet day for Americans - yeah - at the women's downhill event. Tell us about it.
SULLIVAN: Yeah. Honestly, this was - this day had one of the wildest sort of up-to-down swings I've ever seen in this job. I mean, you had...
KWONG: Wow.
SULLIVAN: ...As you mentioned, the first Team USA medal of the Olympics. That came from Breezy Johnson, the skier, who came down the hill. She skied sixth. She had this phenomenal performance, and it was clear right away that she was going to contend for a medal. On this just, like, gorgeous day in Cortina, on the slope with all these, like, beautiful, stunning Dolomite Mountains around us.
Then just a few racers later, you had 41-year-old Lindsey Vonn come to the start house. The anticipation for her race today was massive because she was like the feel-good story of the Olympics so far, as you say, trying to cap off this historic comeback out of retirement with an Olympic medal. That was her hope, despite having torn her ACL just nine days ago.
KWONG: Yeah.
SULLIVAN: But it went horribly wrong. Just 13 seconds into the race, she clipped a gate with her right arm, and she crashed very, very hard, had to be airlifted off the slope. AP and Reuters, in fact, are reporting that she was taken to a hospital in Treviso, which is an Italian city about two hours south of here, where she underwent a procedure to stabilize a fracture in her left leg. U.S. ski team says she's in stable condition, but just a really devastating end to this chapter of Vonn's story.
KWONG: Tell us a little more about Breezy Johnson. She's not as well-known as...
SULLIVAN: Yeah.
KWONG: ...Lindsey Vonn, but she had a truly great race today.
SULLIVAN: Yeah. She did. And actually, a comeback story of her own, too. Just to rewind for a second, she qualified for the 2022 Olympic Games. Those were in Beijing. But then in the weeks leading up to those Olympics, she tore her ACL, decided to keep competing. If this is sounding familiar, just keep listening. Then on a training run here in Cortina, actually, just totally coincidentally with what has...
KWONG: The same course.
SULLIVAN: ...Been happening now - yes.
KWONG: Wow.
SULLIVAN: Just days before, those Olympics, Breezy crashed really hard and made that knee - like, exacerbated the injury, and she was forced to bow out, which is crazy. So anyway, so she said today, like, you know, after the race, after Lindsey crashed, she said, I know what it's like to have your Olympic dreams die on this very course. And so here's a little bit more of what she said there.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
BREEZY JOHNSON: My heart aches for her, and it's a tough road, and it's a tough sport. I think that that's the beauty and the madness of it, that it can hurt you so badly, but you keep coming back for more.
SULLIVAN: And so for Breezy, that hard path led her to this gold medal today. It's the first Olympic medal of her career. She was marvelous. I mean, the downhill race always demands that skiers push themselves to the limit, and Breezy, in fact, it looked a little wild at times when she was coming down the slope, but here she is. She's got her medal, the first of her career, the first for the U.S. at these Olympics. Just an amazing achievement for her.
KWONG: Rachel, over at the land of figure skating, it's been a dramatic day for the team in Milan. Tell us about that.
TREISMAN: Dramatic for the team and all of us watching. Team USA just won gold in the team event, defending its title from the last Olympics in 2022. It capped off a thrilling three days of competition between top 10 countries. But the race for gold this whole time has really been between the U.S. and Japan. They were also the top two finishers in Beijing. And at multiple points in these days of competition, they were separated by just one or two points.
KWONG: Oof.
TREISMAN: In fact, they entered the last portion of the event in a dead-even tie, which set up a very dramatic showdown between Japan's Shun Sato and Ilia Malinin of the U.S.
KWONG: That is very dramatic and a lot of pressure on Malinin.
TREISMAN: Absolutely. And he's used to it. He's been undefeated in major competition since 2023. Though yesterday he came in second in the short program, and he said afterwards, he was only giving 50% to conserve his energy. It seems like he gave more than that today. He landed five quadruple jumps and a one-footed back flip. And even with one brief stumble, he still scored above 200 points, which was enough to put the U.S. back on top of the podium. They won by one point ahead of Japan and Italy.
KWONG: One point. Oh, wow.
TREISMAN: Right.
KWONG: OK. Well, the three-day team event is over now but still a lot of figure skating ahead, right?
TREISMAN: Oh, yeah. We're just getting started. There are competitions ahead in singles, both men and women's, pairs and ice dance. Ice dance actually starts tomorrow, and all eyes will be on Madison Chock and Evan Bates. They're the three-time reigning world champions. They scored a season's best in the team event yesterday. They now have two team golds, seven U.S. titles, so an ice dance Olympic medal of their own is pretty much the only title they don't have. They'll be skating their rhythm dance first, and that is set to a medley of Lenny Kravitz songs. All of the rhythm dance entries have to follow a specific musical theme, and this year, it's the 1990s, so expect a lot of boy bands and girl groups.
KWONG: As a child of the '90s, I'm looking forward to watching that. OK. Men's competitions start Tuesday. Who should we be watching for?
TREISMAN: Well, of course, Ilia - lots of people are waiting to see if he'll become the first skater to land a quadruple axle on Olympic ice. There's also Americans Max Naumov and Andrew Torgashev, strong Japanese skaters like Yuma Kagiyama. He's the 2022 silver medalist who came in first in the men's short program in the team event yesterday. He looked like he was having the best time.
KWONG: Yeah.
TREISMAN: I was loving it. Others that may not medal but will definitely be fun to watch include France's Kevin Aymoz. He has a Lady Gaga program, and, of course, Spain's Tomas-Llorenc Guarino Sabate, who will be skating his "Despicable Me" routine after a very public fight for the music rights that some people have been calling Minion Gate.
KWONG: Minion Gate. OK. Well, looking ahead, Becky, what's next for the women...
SULLIVAN: Yeah.
KWONG: ...On America's alpine ski team?
SULLIVAN: Well, definitely no music, unfortunately, but there is a big one. It's going to be the debut at this Olympic Games for Mikaela Shiffrin, who, you know, next to Lindsey Vonn, these two are obviously the biggest stars in American skiing. The event on Tuesday is called the team combined, where you have one skier who skis the downhill and one skier who skis the slalom, because usually skiers specialize in sort of one or the other, speed or technical. And Shiffrin is usually the best slalom skier in the world. So she's a lock to be on one of these teams. And so this could be her first medal of the Olympics.
But actually, she has struggled for medals at the Olympics in the past, even though she is, otherwise, the most decorated skier ever in the history of the sport. You know, back in those 2022 Games in Beijing, she had sort of ambitiously entered all four individual events. She had a chance in all, left empty-handed. Said this week that she's excited, feeling good. And we'll find out tomorrow who she's competing with in Tuesday's event.
KWONG: That's Becky Sullivan in Cortina and NPR's Rachel Treisman in Milan. For more Olympics coverage, check out Up First Winter Games, a new video podcast from NPR. You can see these two and all the correspondence. New episodes drop throughout the Games every afternoon at youtube.com/npr. Thank you both.
SULLIVAN: Thank you.
TREISMAN: Thanks.
(SOUNDBITE OF PAUL SIMON SONG, "FATHER AND DAUGHTER") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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