Another Team USA skier’s Olympic run has ended prematurely at gate four atop the course at the Tofane Alpine Skiing Centre in Cortina.
Just days after Lindsey Vonn broke her leg in a devastating crash at the 2026 Winter Olympics, teammate Bella Wright’s run in the women’s combined event on Tuesday came to a halt in the exact same spot.
While the 28-year-old Wright avoided crashing and, ultimately, injury, she came in overly aggressive and inched too close to the gate, causing her to lose her balance in the air.
Unable to recover in time, she veered left of the upcoming gate, which halted her run in the same spot as Vonn.
“I just skied it with a little more ‘oomph’ and really tried to create some speed out of it, which I did,” Wright said. “But therefore my line was just too straight and I missed that next gate.
“My (line) was within a foot (of the gate). It just happened so fast (but) that’s ski racing. So definitely bummed.”
Wright’s emphasis on added velocity was seemingly an attempt to rebound from a frustrating 21st-place finish in the women’s downhill — the same event that saw Vonn clip the fourth gate with her shoulder and suffer a potentially career-ending fractured tibia just 13 seconds into her run.
In a crushing scene, the 41-year-old Olympic skier — already powering through a ruptured ACL — was airlifted to Ca’ Foncello Hospital in Treviso, where she underwent multiple surgeries.
Vonn posted to Instagram Monday night, mentioning in the caption that she was “5 inches too tight” during her push for gold in the same event she won at the Vancouver Olympics in 2010.
Breezy Johnson, fresh off becoming just the second American woman in Alpine skiing history to win Olympic downhill gold behind Vonn, steered clear of the gate during her run in the women’s combined and recorded the quickest time in the session.
No stranger to the “really bumpy” area around gate four, Johnson briefly lost control in that spot during the 2021 world championships and narrowly missed out on a spot on the podium.
“It’s kind of a weird spot,” said Johnson. “Sometimes you can be in what you think is the right place, but if you hit a bump wrong it just rocks your world.”
