An Update from US Team Member, Breezy Johnson

There are few seasons I love more than fall. I truly believe Jackson is at its best in the fall. For me, fall means beautiful days in the mountains, and, of course, the final preparations for the ski season. I am just flying back from a great camp in Saas Fee, Switzerland, and I’m excited for this fall season. 

After a long summer and a lot of hard strength work, I am stronger than I have ever been. Going into this Olympic season, my strength coach and I devised a plan to meet some of my long-term strength goals, many of which we accomplished — like back squatting more than I ever have and posting my best bike test. It hasn’t been easy, but I finally reached the 2-year mark since my last major injury, and my knees are feeling strong and healthy.

Going into this season, we now know that COVID-19 will be with us for the foreseeable future. We are better prepared though. I know what is to come, and with vaccines we have a lot more protection. This is good because the stress of last season was at an all-time high, and I didn’t want to have that much worry going into the Olympics. The whole U.S. Ski Team is vaccinated, as is most of the World Cup Tour, which will hopefully allow for friends and family to come to Europe this winter. Hopefully, we will even see some fans at races again. 

Saas Fee was my first camp since May, and it was nice to get going with speed again. We had wanted to go to Chile, but that travel was still impossible. The tough thing with Saas Fee is the commute — an hour of gondolas, trams, trains and electric cars (the town only allows mini two-seat electric cars on its streets) each way. The 4 a.m. wake ups were hard and had me longingly thinking of American lift lines. However, Saas Fee is beautiful, full of glacial streams and sport courts where we played volleyball or tennis in the afternoons. The elevation is very high, but the town is similar to Jackson, so we tested out jet lag strategies to prepare for travel before the Olympics, which will also be an 8-hour time change, in February.

I got seven amazing days on the snow and felt like I was skiing some of my best. We were training with some of the best in the world, and I was regularly winning against Olympic champions, even beating some foreign men’s racers, which bodes well for the season. Training is, as always, training, but it is encouraging to be skiing fast going into the most important season of my life. It gives me confidence going into more camps and the season.

We are headed home for a short stint before going back to Europe for more training. This gives me some time to put in some more work in the gym and hopefully experience some amazing hikes and beautiful days in Jackson.