(ATR) Bill Johnson, whose downhill gold medal at the 1984 Olympic Winter Games marked the beginning of a renaissance in American ski racing, has died at age 55.
The United States Ski Team announced on its website on Friday that Johnson died Thursday at an assisted living facility near Portland, Oregon. He never fully recovered from a serious crash at the U.S. Alpine Championships in March 2001 that left him in a coma for three weeks.
He was attempting a comeback at age 40 in a bid to qualify for the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City. While he did ski again, his racing career was over. In recent years, the effects of the accident led to a number of medical complications that eventually landed him in an assisted living facility.
While Johnson is best known for winning gold in the downhill at Sarajevo, that was hardly the only highlight of what was a splendid 1984 season. The month before the Olympics, the 23-year-old Johnson became the first American man to win a World Cup downhill in the modern era by topping the podium at Wengen, Switzerland. After becoming the first American man to medal in the downhill at the Olympics, he closed the season with wins in Whistler, British Columbia and Aspen, Colorado.
Johnson was never able to come close to replicating that season and retired in the late 1980’s after a series of injuries and personal setbacks. His wife divorced him and took their two sons with her. She told USA TODAY in 2001 that she believed the comeback attempt that led to his serious injury was an attempt to win his family back.
His stay at the top of his sport may have been brief but it helped motivate a new generation of American skiers. Ten years after Sarajevo, Tommy Moe took gold in the downhill at the Lillehammer Games. There is no doubt that the exploits of Johnson and fellow 1984 ski team members like Phil Mahre, who also won a gold medal in Sarajevo, helped pave the way for the likes of Bode Miller and Ted Ligety.
Written by Gerard Farek
Homepage photo: Getty
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