Picabo Street

Picabo Street is an American alpine ski racer who won gold medals in the super G at the 1988 Winter Olympics and in the downhill at the 1996 World Championships, along with three other Olympic and World Championship medals. When she participated in the 1996 Achievement Summit she was hailed as the greatest woman downhill racer in the world. In 1995, Picabo Street was selected as the U.S. Olympic Committee’s “Sportswoman of the Year.� She was born in a tiny Idaho mining town and her parents called her Baby Girl until she was five years old, and then chose Picabo, the name of a Native American tribe. As a teenager, she burst onto the U.S. Ski Team with natural talent, fearless and freckled. At age 16, Picabo Street won the national junior downhill and super G titles. Two years later, her bright promise dimmed, but eventually she whipped herself into shape, rejoined the team, and started winning again. In 1994, she raced into the public spotlight as the Winter Olympic silver medalist in the downhill. The next year, Street triumphed in six of nine downhill races to become the first American to ever win the World Cup title, and then, in Spain, struck gold again when she became the first American woman to win the downhill at the World Championships. She repeated as downhill champion the following season. A month after her gold medal win in the super G at the 1988 Winter Olympics, Picabo Street careened off course while racing at the final downhill of the season in Switzerland. She crashed and snapped her left femur and tore a ligament in her right knee. She was in rehabilitation for two years after the accident, and retired from racing after the 2002 Winter Olympics in Utah. Street was inducted into the National Ski Hall of Fame in 2004. Picabo Street participated in the 1996 Achievement Summit in Sun Valley, Idaho, near her hometown and where she started her career as a member of the local Hailey, Idaho ski team.