Picabo Street

Picabo Street

— Alpine skier —
Disciplines	Downhill, Super-G, Combined
Born	(1971-04-03) April 3, 1971 Triumph, Idaho, U.S.
Height	5 ft 7 in (1.70 m)[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)
Medal record Women's alpine skiing Representing the  United States Olympic Games 1998 Nagano Super-G 1994 Lillehammer Downhill World Championships 1996 Sierra Nevada Downhill 1993 Morioka Combined 1996 Sierra Nevada Super-G

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

Early life

Born at home in Triumph, Idaho, Street's parents are Dee (a music teacher) and Roland "Stubby" Street (a stonemason). Her 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 required to have a name 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. Two months later at the 1993 World Championships in Japan, she won the silver medal in the combined event.^[4]

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 Sierra Nevada, 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.^[5][6] 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.^[2]

Personal life

Street is now retired and splits her time between homes in Alabama and Winter Park, Colorado. 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.^[7] 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 for 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).^[8]

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.

In 1998 she signed with Giro Sport Design which was then developing its first winter sports helmet. In August she toured the company's headquarters/manufacturing facility, then located in Santa Cruz, CA. Being gracious with her fans, she spoke with the Sr. Manufacturing Engineer, a long-time skier himself, about the progression of equipment, signing a prototype helmet for him as she left.^[9] 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.^[10]

She appeared in a skit on Sesame Street, where Elmo was looking for Peekaboo Street and he met the real Picabo Street. Her name also appeared in the song "One Big Mob" by the rock band Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Picabo was the runner up (with a time of 5:37) in the NBC celebrity reality competition series Stars Earn Stripes.^[11]

World Cup results

Season titles

Season standings

Race podiums

• 9 wins – (9 DH)
• 17 podiums – (15 DH, 2 SG)

World Championship results

Olympic results

References

External links

• Picabo Street at the International Ski Federation Results
• FIS-ski.com – World Cup season standings
• Ski-db.com – results – Picabo Street
• Picabo Street at Sports Reference – Olympic results
• U.S. Ski Hall of Fame – Picabo Street – inducted 2004