Athlete profile: Picabo Street

Posted: Tue February 3, 1998 at 5:00 PM ET

Athlete notes

She became America's darling in Lillehammer when she won the silver medal in the downhill with her engaging smile, melodious name, and some very fast skis...and though she does not consider herself superstitious, Picabo Street literally became bug-eyed when she spotted two lady bugs mating on her pant leg earlier this summer...she said it's an omen that will bring her good luck this Valentine's Day...unlike some females her age, Picabo is not wishing for flowers or candy -- but of a gold medal when the downhill takes place February 14 in Hakuba..."I feel like Valentine's Day is my big day," smiled Picabo...Street's had a number of big days in the past few years -- both memorable and forgettable...in 1995, Street ushered in a two-year dominance of the downhill rarely seen in American skiing...she won nine World Cup races as she became the first American to win the World Cup downhill title (1995 and 1996)...at the 1996 World Championships in Sierra Nevada, Spain, Street claimed the downhill and finished third in the Super G..."Having Picabo at the top of the sport -- we need that in skiing," says Italy's Alberto Tomba. "Maybe we're both fireballs. I haven't known her that long, just four years, because she's very young. Maybe sometime I'll be her coach for the slalom, and she'll be the best in the world"...at each race in Europe, signs for Street -- many in foreign languages -- are visible...but Street missed most of last season after suffering a complete tear in the anterior cruciate and a partial tear of the medial collateral ligament on December 4, 1996 during a training run down Pepi's Face in Vail, Colorado...Street underwent reconstructive surgery performed by knee specialist, Dr. Richard Steadman..."I battled depression within the first month," she said. "It was watching my body change after five or six years of vigorous training and the beef I had layered myself with. I just shred off layers, especially off my left leg. It went from large and tight to small and mushy. I'd catch myself sitting in my room, looking at my little, atrophied leg and just crying"...during her time off, Picabo searched for the same sensation she had when skiing..."I tried for it on the keyboard of the piano and outside on the grass with my dog and doing all kinds of virtual reality things. I even tried rock climbing"...that was intense, she said, but just not the same thing as skiing...then she realized how the injury helped her..."It gave me perspective that without it I would have never gotten. It gave me a new motivation for the sport, resurfaced my love for the actual sensation of skiing, literally feeling the wind blow through my hair and the sensation of sliding. It was a re-found love that I think I needed because I don't know if I would have been able to go for another two, three, four, five more years without me questioning what I'm doing"...after seven months of dry-land reflection, Picabo finally strapped on her skis...on July 7, 1997 she returned to the snow on Mt. Hood in Oregon..."I knew the day was coming but I had tried to put it out of my head for so long because it was so long away. That day was a moving moment for me," she said, ranking the occasion on the same level as the Lillehammer downhill and her first day as a freshman in high school. "I've never been so awake at six o'clock in the morning in my life. I was going skiing for the first time in seven months and I was so happy I could cry," she said...tenderness and scar tissue prEventsed Street's return to the World Cup circuit until December 18 when she finished 11th in the Super-G and 10th in the downhill in Val d'Isere, France..."Now that we've made the decision to not start with the beginning of the World Cup season, I'm not really worried about anything but winning a gold medal at Nagano," Street said. "It's kind of been in the plan for a long time. Like a week after I won my silver, I think I went, ‘now, when can I better this? Nagano '98? All right'"...Street has made the necessary preparations to receive gold in Japan, knee or no knee...last March she surveyed the Olympic downhill course the best way she could - by piggyback..."Skis weren't happening for me at all, so he [assistant coach Andreas Rickenbach] popped me onto his back and slipped me down the course. We stopped at six or seven spots to look at it and get some strategy, and I got kind of an idea," she recalled. "It's a good challenging course, not particularly favorable to anyone. It's got turns, sides, jumps -- a little bit of everything"...Street will be hard-pressed to topple Germany's Katja Seizinger -- her longtime rival who has dominated downhill in December..."Yes, but Katja will be the first to tell you not to count me out too," says Picabo, about the woman who defeated her in Lillehammer. "They're going to see a show in Nagano. One way or the other. Regardless of whether or not I'm standing up there winning a gold medal or not. If it's positive enough and if it's an intense enough story with passion in it regardless of what it's about, it's going to move people. And that's what I'm about - moving people"...there was once a time in the recent past that Picabo herself was so moved..."When I look back at Lillehammer, it's kind of a dreamy fairy tale almost as opposed to where I am now," she says. "The medal stand is incredible. It was nothing like I thought. I was all composed and ready and as soon as I stepped up on the podium it hit me that I was getting ready to get an Olympic medal around the neck. I got this knot in my throat instantly and I thought to myself, no you didn't win a gold, you have no right to cry. You need to maintain your composure and smile really pretty because everyone at home is watching, especially my mom and dad right down there"..."I wanted to be one of the medalists from Lillehammer because I think it was a special Olympic Games and it's going to be hard to find one that moves your spirit as much as Lillehammer did," added Street. "It [the silver medal] didn't really hit me hard until I got off my [return] flight in either New York or Chicago. Two airline attendants met me at the gate and ushered me through the airport. I realized, wow, my life has changed"...she was on her way to super stardom...in the past four years, Picabo has collected a Nike sponsorship, a new agent/manager, Brad Hunt, a line of ski gear produced by Spyder made to her specifications, a signature tennis shoe by Nike called "Air Sheek," a ski by Rossignol called the "Peek" and numerous ad campaigns for United Airlines, Chapstick, Pepsi and Rolex...although Picabo is a small town Idaho girl at heart, she is said to function well under big city cameras and audiences..."You bring her to these sponsor things and you just turn her loose. Her energy is contagious," said Todd Burnette, the vice president of sales and marketing for the US Ski and Snowboard Association...it may have been preordained that Picabo would attain great heights -- after all, she was born in Triumph...she is named after a town, Picabo, in southern Idaho...her parents, Dee and Ron, are former hippies who intended to allow Picabo to choose her own name when she was old enough...in the meantime they called her "Little Girl"...the need for a passport for a trip to Mexico, however, forced the Street's to name both their daughter and son...thus Picabo and her brother, Baba Jomo, were given official identities... "Picabo" is a Native American term for "Shining Waters"..."A lot of people made so much fun of my name, so much. They said some of the meanest things, cause you know you can add Peek-a-dot, dot, dot. You fill in the blank," she remembered. "You can pretty much add anything you want in there and I heard it all"... Street said once she got a little older and put on a little more weight, "I was fighting and yelling at people all the time for making fun of my name, or what I did...but having a name that nobody else had-I liked that"...Picabo, it seems, grew up a fighter...in 1990 she kicked off the US Ski Team for being out of shape and in 1992 was put on probation by the ski team for her attitude..."I basically had the attitude to go all the way but physically I didn't feel that I needed to work that hard. I was wanting to ride more on my natural abilities and at that age I was always more rebellious against things," said Picabo. "Because I feel like if you can't explain to me why I should do it then you have no right telling me to do it. And that was a problem. And it got to be a real problem with the trainers on the team"...she has since tamed her attitude and made it work for her...in 1996 Picabo bought a 3,400 square foot home in Portland, Oregon where her and her parents live and run a mini skiing empire earning between $1-1.5 million a year...Ron and Dee work for Picabo; Dee oversees the finances included taxes and accounting, Ron handles the any complications...but from now until Valentine's Day, Street is trying to pave her life with love..."Love has a lot to do with my program," she says. "Within my family I'm trying to make sure that we rejuvenate a lot of love with each other. I send a lot of love to different people and a lot of different circumstances so that when it's time, I'll receive a lot when I need it. You send love out, it's going to come back around to you 10-times fold through one channel or another"...Picabo hopes the channel is from Nagano across the US on February 14...