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Ready to rock Picabo Street is eager to get back on skis
Posted: Saturday October 30, 1999 12:49 AM
PARK CITY, Utah (AP) -- Through a sun-filled window is a steep Hillside, where barren ski runs break up clusters of leafless trees. The sight makes Picabo Street restless and giddy, like a 3-year-old eyeballing a bucket of candy. "It's going to snow soon!" Street squeals, wearing a broad smile and flushed cheeks. "You know, from the time the leaves fall until it snows, I'm the devil." That's hard to believe, considering things have been heavenly lately for America's spunky downhill skier. For the first time since a horrific crash in Switzerland one month after her gold-medal performance in the super-G during the 1998 Nagano Olympics, Street is ready to get back on skis. Oh, boy, is she ready. "Eeeeeeeee!" she shrieks. "I can't even believe it!" No doubt, the 28-year-old is past those depressing months that followed the crash. These days, life is great. She's got a new chalet, purchased last summer, overlooking Park City. "It's a 71/2-acre piece that gives me some elbow room," Street said. "I can see everyone coming from up on a hill. I have a view, like I always promised myself I would." She has a new job as director of skiing at Park City Mountain Resort, which renamed an expert's trail from Clementine to Picabo's Run to honor its famous employee. And undeterred by the terrifying crash at Crans Montana and her 20-month rehabilitation, she's got big dreams of racing the downhill or the super-G in the 2002 Winter Olympics in Utah. "I'd like to carry the flag during the opening ceremonies," Street said. "Then I'd like a bronze medal to finish my Olympic medal collection. Everything else above that would be gravy." Then there's Plan B. If the high-speed events prove too difficult, even for America's most decorated woman downhiller, Street said she's considering giant slalom, which places a greater emphasis on technical precision. "Obviously, my long boards get first choice," she said. "If they don't work, then I'll revert to shorter skis. But I'm going to try to get on the downhill skis if I can, because I like them." Then again, Park City is the Olympic giant-slalom venue. "I'd really like to race at home here in the GS," Street said with a sigh. "I've got to decide. To be racing here during the Olympics, I need to be racing next year." Rehabilitation has gone well after Street's third major knee operation. She broke her left femur and ripped ligaments in her right knee, tumbling down the Swiss mountain on March 13, 1998. "She had an incredibly severe injury," said Cindy Nelson, a three-time Olympic downhiller and the United States flag-bearer in the 1976 Winter Games at Innsbruck, Austria. Street said exercises needed to regain her strength were demanding. So was the battle to put the crash out of her head. "I don't dream about it anymore," Street said. "I don't really have flashbacks at all anymore, either. I haven't seen the video in a long time, which helps. I'm moving forward." Nelson said Street's "incredibly strong mind," relentless competitive spirit and ability to excel at technical aspects of the downhill "make Picabo so phenomenally great." "That crash could have been career-ending," Nelson said. "Most people might have considered a comeback, but they wouldn't have the power of mind and the spirit to undergo and withstand such a brutal challenge." She's tough, but Street admits she's got limits. "That's something that people misinterpret about me," she said. "I'm not inhuman. I'm not fearless. I just recognize the fear, categorize it and replace it with the task at hand." This fall, that means being tantalizingly close to skiing again. "I'm 85 percent, maybe 90 percent, and getting myself ready every day," she said. "I just need a little more time. I'm about a month away right now." Street plans to train this winter when not riding the Park City lifts or chatting with resort guests. Her new job has challenges. Always a full-throttle skier, Street is "scared big-time" about slowing down to help ski-school instructors. And she's been skiing so long, she doesn't know how to teach the sport. "I have to learn to read folks," she said. "I have to be careful about offending someone if I say, 'Hey, if you unbuckle your boots, you can walk down the stairs a lot easier.'" That's the workaday Picabo. In the long run, she hopes to be back on the World Cup circuit in a year, eyeing the Salt Lake games and the emotional script it would complete. "I'm going for it," Street said. "I'm going to ski myself into shape and move into competition in the fall of 2000. I've still got some good years left."
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