Named to the 1956 Olympic team,[6][7] she incurred neck and knee fractures in downhill training at Kitzbühel on January 14, less than two weeks before the games began at Cortina d'Ampezzo.

[8][9] Born in Denver, Colorado, Rodolph grew up in Hayden and learned to ski and race at nearby Howelsen Hill in Steamboat Springs.

While still in plaster from her Kitzbühel injuries, Rodolph married William Wyatt, an officer in the U.S. Air Force, in a civil ceremony in Las Vegas in February 1956.

[16][17][18][19] That marriage was kept secret for nearly a year, until the 1952 Winter Olympics in February, when rumors of a romance between Rodolph and new gold medalist Stein Eriksen made the wire services.

[24] In Oslo, the couple came forward to announce their marriage twelve months earlier in Raton, New Mexico and dispel the rumors,[23] but with consequences.