Picabo Street

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Picabo Street
 Alpine ski racer 
Disciplines Downhill, Super-G
Born (1971-04-03) April 3, 1971
Triumph, Idaho, U.S.
Height 1.70 m (5 ft 7 in) [1]
World Cup debut December 6, 1992
(age 21)
Retired February 2002 (age 30)
Olympics
Teams 3 – (1994, 1998, 2002)
Medals 2 (1 gold)
World Championships
Teams 2 – (1993, 1996)
Medals 3 (1 gold)
World Cup
Seasons 8 – (1993-2002)
(injured 1999, 2000)
Wins 9 – (9 DH)
Podiums 17 – (15 DH, 2 SG)
Overall titles 0 – (5th, 1995)
Discipline titles 2 – (DH – 1995, 1996)

Picabo Street (/ˈpkəb/; born April 3, 1971) is a former World Cup alpine ski racer from the United States. She won gold medals in super G at the 1998 Winter Olympics and in downhill at 1996 World Championships, along with three other Olympic and World Championship medals. She also won World Cup downhill season titles in 1995 and 1996, the first American woman to do so, along with a total of 9 World Cup downhill race wins. Street was inducted into the National Ski Hall of Fame in 2004.

Early life

Street was born at home in Triumph, Idaho, to Dee (a music teacher) and Roland "Stubby" Street (a stonemason). Her older brother Roland Jr is one year older. Her parents decided to let Picabo choose her own name when she was old enough, so for the first two years of her life she was called "baby girl" or "little girl". At age 3 she was forced to be named in order to get a passport. She was named after the nearby village of Picabo.[2] She was raised on a small farm in Triumph, several miles southeast of Sun Valley, where she learned to ski and race. She attended Rowland Hall-St. Mark's School in Salt Lake City, Utah, and participated in its ski academy, Rowmark, for one year before returning to Sun Valley to race for the Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation. Before the academy, she was a member of the local Hailey Ski Team.[3]

Skiing career

Street first joined the U.S. Ski Team in 1989, at the age of 17. She primarily competed in the speed events of downhill and super G and made her World Cup debut at age 21 in a slalom on December 6, 1992.

1994–1996

After her silver medal performance in the downhill at the 1994 Winter Olympics, a run was named after her at Sun Valley, on the Warm Springs side of Bald Mountain, the expert run formerly known as "Plaza" became "Picabo's Street." Street joined Christin Cooper and Gretchen Fraser as Sun Valley Olympic medalists (their named runs are on Seattle Ridge).

By winning the 1995 downhill title, she became the first American ever to win a World Cup season title in a speed event. She repeated as downhill champion the following season, adding the title of world champion with her gold medal at the 1996 World Championships in Spain.

1997–2002

In early December 1996, she suffered a knee injury in training in Colorado after competing in just two races and sat out the remainder of the 1997 season. A month after her gold medal win in the super G at the 1998 Winter Olympics, Street careened off course while racing at the final downhill of the 1998 season at Crans-Montana, Switzerland. She crashed and snapped her left femur into two and tore a ligament in her right knee. [4] She was in rehabilitation for two years following the accident.

Street returned to ski racing in late 2000, and retired from international competition after the 2002 Winter Olympics in Utah, where she finished 16th in the downhill.[5]

Personal life

Street is now retired and splits her time between homes in Alabama and Park City, Utah. She has a son, Treyjan James Pawley, born in August 2004, with her former partner N. J. Pawley. On October 25, 2008, she married businessman John Reeser atop Prospect Mountain, near Hanceville, Alabama.[6] On August 3, 2009, Picabo gave birth to her second son, Dax Meyer Street Reeser, in Birmingham.

On ESPN's "College Game Day" in Boise on September 25, 2010, Picabo stated that she was pregnant and expecting her third boy.

She named her skis mainly after people who were strong and meant a lot to her. Among them, she has her "Earnies" (after Dale Earnhardt) and her "Arnolds" (after Arnold Schwarzenegger).[7]

She appeared on the TV shows Nickelodeon GUTS in 1994, and Pyramid (2002). She did very well on the show American Gladiators, where Street used her strength to defeat the gladiator character "Ice" in a couple of events.

In the late 1990s, after her success at the 1998 Winter Olympics, Street became a spokeswoman for a variety of products, including the soft drink Mountain Dew and ChapStick-brand lip balm. She also appeared on Celebrity Paranormal Project.

She wrote an autobiography in 2001 titled Picabo: Nothing to Hide (ISBN 0-07-140693-X). In it, Street reveals the pressures placed on her by her sponsors to succeed and win, which she maintains contributed to her devastating 1998 crash. She also writes of how she was able to transform from a rebellious tomboy into a world-class athlete.

A feature film based on Street's life story is in development as of late 2009, written by Eric Preston with director Charles Winkler slated to direct, and produced by Jeff Luini and Richard Weiner. Filming will begin in 2010 in Argentina.[8]

She appeared in a skit on Sesame Street, where Elmo was looking for Peekaboo Street and he met the real Picabo Street.

Picabo was the runner up (with a time of 5:37) in the NBC celebrity reality competition series Stars Earn Stripes.[9]

World Cup results

Season standings

Season Age Overall Slalom Giant
Slalom
Super G Downhill Combined
1993 21 39 56 39 18
1994 22 36 42 8 16
1995 23 5 8 1
1996 24 6 49 14 1 5
1997 25 71 25
1998 26 46 24 17
1999 27 no World Cup starts
2000 28
2001 29 68 26
2002 30 52 17

Season titles

Season Discipline
1995Downhill
1996Downhill

Race podiums

  • 9 wins – (9 DH)
  • 17 podiums – (15 DH, 2 SG)
Season Date Location Race Place
1993 13-Mar-1993 Norway Kvitfjell, Norway Downhill 2nd
1995 09-Dec-1994 Canada Lake Louise, Canada Downhill 1st
11-Dec-1994 Super G 3rd
14-Jan-1995 Germany Garmisch, Germany Super G 2nd
20-Jan-1995 Italy Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy Downhill 2nd
21-Jan-1995 Downhill 1st
17-Feb-1995 Sweden Åre, Sweden Downhill 1st
04-Mar-1995 Austria Saalbach, Austria Downhill 1st
11-Mar-1995 Switzerland Lenzerheide, Switzerland Downhill 1st
15-Mar-1995 Italy Bormio, Italy Downhill 1st
1996 01-Dec-1995 Canada Lake Louise, CanadaDownhill 1st
16-Dec-1995 Austria St. Anton, Austria Downhill 3rd
19-Jan-1996 Italy Cortina d'Ampezzo, ItalyDownhill 1st
20-Jan-1996 Downhill 2nd
03-Feb-1996 France Val-d'Isère, FranceDownhill 2nd
29-Feb-1996 Norway Narvik, Norway Downhill 1st
01-Mar-1996 Downhill 2nd

References

  1. ALPINE SKIING: Picabo Street
  2. http://www.espn.go.com/classic/biography/s/Street_Picabo.html Picabo Street Bio On ESPN
  3. http://www.rowlandhall.org/schoollife/rowmark/college_placement/index.php Recent Articles : Ski Program – Rowmark Ski Academy, accessed February 21, 2010
  4. The Augusta Chronicle – 1998-03-14 – accessed 2011-04-03
  5. espn.go.com – biography – Picabo Street – accessed 2011-04-03
  6. "Olympic Skier Picabo Street Weds" People Online, November 3, 2008.
  7. United States Olympic Committee – Street, Picabo
  8. "SportsBusiness Daily: Names In The News". September 2, 2009. Retrieved 13 February 2010. "Producers Richard Weiner and Jeff Luini will make a new movie based on the life of U.S. skier Picabo Street. Directed by Charles Winkler and written by Eric Preston, Picabo will start filming sometime in '10 in Argentina." 
  9. "Stars Earn Stripes, Episode 105 (Harbor Demolition) Results". Retrieved 2012-09-08. 

External links

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