The 22-year-old athlete from Victor in Idaho, who competed in her first Olympics at Pyeongchang 2018 and has had five top 10 World Cup finishes in the last two years, tore her right anterior cruciate ligament while training with the US women's speed team in El Colorado.

In doing so she says she joins the "vast majority" of skiers on the World Cup circuit to have suffered the injury.

"Anterior cruciate ligament: the three little words that so many ski racers have experienced, that there's barely any of us left on the World Cup without scars on our knees," Johnson said.

Swiss Alpine skier Justin Murisier was the most recent athlete to suffer the same injury, when just a few weeks ago he tore his right ACL for the third time.

In fact the injury is so common that Johnson said she felt it was a case of when, and not if, she would suffer the same fate.

"But knowing that it would come and that it did are two different things," she said.

Johnson will now have surgery to repair the damage and faces 14 months of rehab to get back to full fitness, but she says she is positive about her future.

"When I was younger, I thought an ACL tear was the worst thing that could happen to a ski racer," she said.

"Now I know better.

"ACL tears are, relatively speaking, pretty lucky in our world.

"Perhaps that makes things better.

"I have less fear about the surgery and rehab to come.

"Yes, I know it will be difficult, painful, and aggravating, but I am no stranger to any of those things."