Johnson finished runner-up in the downhill World Cup final to Italy’s Laura Pirovano in Kvitfjell, Norway, on Saturday.
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The deficit (15 hundredths of a second) was the smallest of Johnson’s 11 World Cup podiums: all finished in second and third place.
Pirovano continued his post-Olympic dominance, winning a third consecutive downhill on the circuit. The 28-year-old started the season without a World Cup podium and ends it as champion of the downhill season.
ALPINE SKIING: Complete results | Broadcast schedule
The main plot of the World Cup finals is the competition for the overall title of the season, the highest annual prize in this sport. Points are accumulated in each race during the World Cup season from October to March.
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Mikaela Shiffrin, bidding to tie a women’s record with her sixth career overall title, entered the final four races of the 37-race season with a 140-point lead over Germany’s Emma Aicher.
The finals feature one race in each discipline: the downhill on Saturday, then the super G on Sunday, the slalom on Tuesday and the giant slalom on Wednesday.
Each race winner receives 100 points on a descending scale: 80 points for second place, 60 points for third, 50 for fourth, 45 for fifth and so on.
Aicher, who races in all four disciplines, had a chance Saturday to significantly gain on Shiffrin, who has not raced downhill this season.
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Aicher, second in the season’s downhill standings and the Olympic downhill silver medalist behind Johnson, finished fifth on Saturday.
She cut Shiffrin’s lead to 95 points and may need to win even more in Sunday’s super G, which Shiffrin is expected to compete in. This is because the last two races are in Shiffrin’s top giant slalom and slalom events.
Image of Breezy Johnson and the whirlwind of winning Olympic gold
Breezy Johnson and the whirlwind of winning Olympic gold
Team USA alpine skier Breezy Johnson reveals what the 24 hours after winning a gold medal at the Winter Olympics are really like.