Olympic gold medal skier Breezy Johnson won white gold at the end of her 2026 Milano Cortina super-G race: an engagement ring from her partner, Connor Watkins. “Now I can’t be like, ‘Was my favorite week of my life when I got engaged or when I won the Olympics?’” Breezy Johnson jokes to Vogue a few hours after their engagement. “We just combined the two greatest moments.”
Breezy and Connor first connected two-and-a-half years ago in Utah, via Bumble. “I would say our timeline really fits in well with Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce,” laughs Breezy, a self-professed Swiftie. At the time, the skier was living in Park City, while the construction project manager was based in Salt Lake City. Connor noted his love of singer Noah Kahan on his profile, and Breezy opened by sharing she just saw him perform at a private event. “I thought, Well, that’s pretty cool,” says Connor. When the two met for a first date at a brunch spot, Connor had no idea that he was about to meet an Olympic athlete. He remembers, “We started talking about me at first, and when I switched over to her, and I was like, ‘So what do you do?’” She casually stated that she skied. “People get kind of thrown on the back when you’re like, ‘Oh, I’m an Olympic skier.’ So I think I just started out small,” Breezy explains. Connor adds: “I just told myself to keep cool.”
A few weeks after the two started seeing each other, Breezy had to leave for three weeks of training. “I feel like that was kind of my first inclination that it was gonna work,” she shares. “I’m not always the most organized person, and he was very good about texting me and checking in with me. That was reassuring. Like, my room is a complete mess right now, and he’s organized. He definitely complements me in many ways.”
The couple’s relationship grew as they went through some difficult times together, including Breezy’s 14-month suspension from racing in 2023. “That was somewhat early in when we were dating and was a lot to deal with,” says the skier. “I felt like if we could get through that, we could get through a lot.”
“There was a silver lining to it,” Connor adds. “It did allow us to be together and build a nice space for us.”
In April 2024, Breezy and Connor officially moved in together in Salt Lake City, where they now live with their two cats, Wolfie and Apricot. The move coincided with the release of Taylor Swift’s song “The Alchemy,” which felt especially meaningful for the pair. The song has many sports allusions (likely inspired by Kelce) and metaphors about what the prize truly is—the gold trophy, or the person in the stands. “You get to a point as an athlete where winning is really cool, but the coolest part is being able to share it with the people that you love,” says Breezy. “When you have somebody really important to you, and you actually get the opportunity to spot them in the stands and run over to them—it’s really special.” Connor held onto the lyrics of that song when planning his proposal to Breezy. Inside a custom wood box, he had inscribed: “Honestly, who are we to fight the alchemy.” (They both add that they wouldn’t mind if Taylor Swift wanted to make an appearance at their wedding.)
Photo: Sierra Ryder/U.S. Ski Team