Breezy Johnson and Mikaela Shiffrin win first-ever team combined at world championships

Mikaela Shiffrin and Breezy Johnson make a great team.

Shiffrin and Johnson, whose friendship goes back 15 years to when they got paired together as roommates, won the inaugural team combined event at the world championships on Tuesday. It's the second gold of these worlds for Johnson, who won the downhill Saturday, and the third medal in as many events for the U.S. women. Lauren Macuga won bronze in the super-G.

"I feel like we talked at that time about the hopes and dreams, and I think we connected specifically about feeling like we were a little bit lost in a world where young girls were not really supposed to be as ambitious as we were," Shiffrin said at a post-race victory party.

"So, so grateful to be your teammate today," Shiffrin said. "Thank you for a memory that tops the list of any medal I’ve ever won."

That's quite the statement, given the team combined was Shiffrin's eighth gold at the world championships, a record. It also was her 15th medal overall at worlds.

"She’s such a legend," Johnson said of Shiffrin, whose 99 World Cup victories are more than any other skier, male or female. "It's super cool to be hitting my stride and she’s obviously been on hers for a decade or more."

While Johnson and Shiffrin's pairing might seem like a no-brainer, it almost didn't happen. Shiffrin missed roughly two months with a deep gash in her obliques after she was impaled — she still doesn't know by what — during a crash in a giant slalom race in Killington, Vermont. She only returned to the World Cup circuit on Jan. 30, and said last week she would skip the team combined to focus on the individual GS and slalom races.

On Monday, however, Shiffrin withdrew from the GS, citing lingering PTSD from the crash. That opened up the possibility of doing the combined, and U.S. Ski Team officials paired her with Johnson, currently the top U.S. downhiller.

"You could have won (downhill) gold and said, `I’m good. Peace out.' And you were just like, `No, let’s do it!'" Shiffrin said.

The team combined, which is one downhill run and one slalom run, will make its Olympic debut next year in Milan Cortina. This was the first time it was contested at the world championships.

"The vibe around it, teaming up and feeling like we’re doing it together, was so cool," Shiffrin said.

Johnson posted the fourth-fastest time in the downhill, 0.51 seconds behind Macuga. With Shiffrin as her partner, however, it was a manageable gap to close.

Shiffrin came out blazing, sluicing her way through the gates on the upper part of the course. She got a little loose toward the bottom, but pulled it together to finish strong. Johnson and Shiffrin's combined time of 2:40.89 put them in first, but with Austria, Germany and fellow American Paula Moltzan still to go, they had to wait to see if it would stand up.

It did. Austria couldn't keep pace while Germany had a major error that dropped them all the way to 17th. That left only Moltzan, and she couldn't come close to catching Shiffrin.

Johnson and Shiffrin finished 0.39 seconds ahead of Switzerland's Lara Gut-Behrami and Wendy Holdener. Austria's Stephanie Venier and Katharina Truppe took the bronze. Macuga and Moltzan were fourth, missing the podium by 0.11 seconds.

Jackie Wiles and Katie Hensien were 10th and Lindsey Vonn and AJ Hurt were 16th.

"This was an amazing day," Shiffrin said. "For me, up there it was nerve-wracking because Breezy did her job spectacularly. ... Really, really unbelievable. Just happy."

Shiffrin will have a chance to add to her medal haul with Saturday's slalom race. She is a four-time world champion in that event.