JACKSON, Wyo. — The Olympic Games have officially come to a close, and the three female athletes from the Jackson area put on a show on the national stage. Jaelin Kauf, Breezy Johnson and Anna Gibson all participated in different skiing events at the Milan Cortina Olympics.
Breezy Johnson won the first gold medal of the Olympics for Team USA in women’s downhill. She then teamed up with American skier Mikaela Shiffrin for the women’s alpine skiing team combined event. The duo finished in fourth place, while Americans Jacqueline Wiles and Paula Moltzan secured bronze. Kauf won silver in the freestyle mogul event, then another silver in dual moguls. In the semifinal race for dual moguls, Kauf crashed but still finished, and she won that race when her opponent traveled outside the track parameters, disqualifying her. This past weekend, local resident Anna Gibson represented the United States in the Olympic debut of ski mountaineering (skimo).
According to official Olympic results, Gibson competed in the women’s sprints on Thursday, Feb. 19, and made the cut to the semifinals, but finished about 9 seconds off the leader and did not advance to the finals.
Two days later, teams of one man and one woman raced in the skimo mixed relay. Anna Gibson joined forces with the U.S. men’s competitor Cam Smith, of Colorado, to compete against 11 other teams. Team members alternated to complete two laps each on the racecourse, which contained two ascents (one with a bootpack) and two descents. After Spain completed a transition outside of the transition zone, they were handed a 3-second penalty, but it wasn’t enough for Team USA to overtake the bronze medal position. Gibson and Smith ended the race in fourth place, with a time of 27:40.43, about 43 seconds behind first-place finisher France. Switzerland finished in second place, about 12 seconds out of gold medal position.
Gibson posted on Instagram after the race saying: “I’ve got to be the happiest 4th place finisher the Olympics has ever seen. That was the time of my life!!!!!”
Dual moguls is a new format for the moguls event in the Olympics, and Kauf posted on social media saying one of her favorite moments was being able to participate in the first-ever dual moguls event. “I have never felt so full of love in my entire life so thank you all for giving me an absolute dream of an Olympics,” she wrote.
Johnson gained a gold medal and a fiance at the Olympics. Her boyfriend Connor Watkins proposed a few days after her podium finish. Though Johnson didn’t medal in the team combined event, she expressed her appreciation in a social post later: “You either win or you learn,” she wrote. “That’s what we did out there today. I think Team Combined is a crazy and fun new event. It’s also an event that is extremely difficult for ways that we as ski racers aren’t used to. I know I learned a lot and I think Mik did too. … Seeing Jackie and Paula get their flowers is such an incredible moment. These two embody what it is to be a champion.”
According to ESPN, eight of the 12 gold medals won by Team USA were won by women. And 63.6% of all of Team USA’s medals were won by women.
