Yeah, ooh, that’s why I’m Breezy

The “Sunday” lyric totally tracks. Sure, we’re here skiing on a Tuesday, but it was two days prior when we first met Breezy Johnson as she tackled the women’s downhill (yes, THAT women’s downhill) in Cortina d’Ampezzo in the hours of an easy Sunday morning in one of the first major events of the Milan Cortina Games.

About an hour before the wipeout heard around the world that claimed the final chapter in the legendary career of Lindsey Vonn (God bless you, kid), Breezy Johnson conquered the 1 1/2-some-odd mile downhill course at Olimpia della Tofane, one that descends 2,500 feet over that distance, (again, for those of you scoring at home, that’s the tippy top of the Empire State Building plus 1,000 feet) in a gold medal immortal of 1 minute, 36.10 seconds.

On to Tuesday, where the new Olympic event, Alpine team combined, consists of 28 two-skier teams, with one skier competing in the downhill and the other in the slalom. The two combined times make up a team’s final score. Lowest total score takes gold.

Johnson and Shiffrin are one of four US pairs in the field, along with Isabella Wright and Nina O’Brien; Keely Cashman and AJ Hurt; and Jackie Wiles and Paula Moltzan.

Johnson’s downhill time in the team combined isn’t far off from Sunday’s gold medal run, just a half-second difference at 1:36.59; good enough to put she and Shiffrin in first place heading into the downhill finale, just .06 seconds ahead of Austria’s Ariane Raedler (1:36.65) and Katharina Huber.

Wiles (1:37.04) and Moltzan are in fourth following the downhill portion; Cashman (1:39.91) and Hurt are 21st; and Wright and O’Brien are eliminated as Wright is one of two downhillers, along with Italy’s Sofia Goggia, to not finish the downhill.

***

While we’re in a two-hour holding pattern awaiting the slalom portion of our Alpine team combined, let me take the opportunity to share a quick skiing anecdote.

I’ve got to admit, since I watched the first two episodes of AMC’s Tom Brady produced “Rise of the 49ers,” I’m a little leery about the usual anecdotal tangents. This has always been a go-to in my column writing, my own version of the Rex Ryan audible, if you will. I’m not sure if my reluctance is born from being put off by Tom Brady’s autobiographical over-involvement in the narrative of the superb 49ers docuseries, or from frustration over his stealing my schtick. Better to abide by the keystone fundamentals, though. So, I’ll go with what I know.

The other day I digressed into the short-lived dream of speed skating greatness from my youth. My skiing career was even less eventful. We’re talking one day in training skis on the Dodge Ridge bunny slopes. In fact, my only outstanding memory of being on the snow was clinging to the tow rope they use to pull you up the bunny hill.

My experience at Dodge Ridge proved a formative one. Not because of my time on the snow, as, if I can rely on that old tow-rope memory, I only made it down the hill once, in a run that probably involved more falling than skiing. It was later at the ski lodge where I found my calling, when I spent the few quarters I had on me to play Pat Benatar’s “Hit Me With Your Best Shot” and Devo’s “Whip It” on the jukebox. In about the same time it takes Breezy Johnson to ski the Olimpia della Tofane downhill, 9-year-old me unwittingly discovered a dream with far more staying power in those 1980 rock anthems.

***

I know as soon as I see the name Katharina Huber at the bottom of the TV screen, as the Austrian readies at the gate for the penultimate slalom race of the day.

Whereas the downhill is just barreling down a 2,500-foot drop like a maniac, the slalom is mayhem; a nausea inducing nonstop roller coaster of precision zigzagging through niveous divots while jutting to and fro around practically imperceptible breakaway sticks in the snow.

Four different teams take the lead before Germany’s Emma Aicher — who Sunday finished .04 seconds back of Johnson in the women’s downhill to take silver — makes the switch to slalom and gives her and Kira Weidle-Winkelmann a lead of 0.83 seconds in the total combined score with five heats to go.

Moltzan is next to cross the finish line, propelling the “other” US duo into second place with three heats left. Italy’s Martina Peterlini follows, washing out halfway down the hill, the eighth skier to not finish the daunting slalom course. This clinches a medal for Aicher and Weidle-Winkelmann, with Molttzan and Wiles precariously on the cusp in third, leaving just Huber and Shiffrin to vie for Tuesday glory.

It’s her name, Katharina Huber. It causes my anxious excitement — or, more precisely, a feeling the Swedes call “resfeber” — to all but dissipate.

A while back I wrote about my grandmother Helen Katherine Robles, and her affinity for the phenomenon of angel numbers. Only, this time, it isn’t the angel numbers, but the kindred names, angel names, if you will: Helen Katherine and Katharina Huber.

Huber races the Austrian team into first place by .05 seconds. I already know it will stand as the gold medal margin. The angels of the airwaves validate the feeling as, seconds into Shiffrin’s finale heat, the television glitches out, goes black for a few seconds, and as the pixels reform, Shiffrin’s time is in the red, and the audio doesn’t return until she crosses the finish line just off the podium in fourth place.

With the Austrian Angels, Huber and Raedler, going gold, Aicher and Weidle-Winkelmann take silver for Germany. I’m thinking a Stevie Wonder song for Moltzan and Wiles, who surprise with bronze. Funny, just two days ago it was Lindsey Vonn in the spotlight when we were all introduced to wunderkind Breezy Johnson. Fast forward 48 hours, its Shiffrin and Johnson in the spotlight, left off the podium because of a couple upstart American wonders. Ah, that Olympic magic.

How do we all feel about singing Tuesday Heartbreakers?