Picabo Street (/ˈpiːkəbuː/; born April 3, 1971) is an American former World Cup alpine ski racer and Olympic gold medalist.
[2] She was raised on a small farm in Triumph, several miles southeast of Sun Valley, where she learned to ski and race.
She primarily competed in the speed events of downhill and super G, with her World Cup debut at age 21 in a slalom on December 6 1992.
Street joined Christin Cooper and Gretchen Fraser as Sun Valley Olympic medalists (their named runs are on Seattle Ridge).
While training in Colorado in early December 1996, Street suffered an ACL injury to her left knee and missed the remainder of the 1997 season.
[5] A month after her gold medal win in the super G at the 1998 Winter Olympics, she careened off course at the final downhill of the 1998 season at Crans-Montana, Switzerland.
Street returned to ski racing in late 2000, and retired from international competition after the 2002 Winter Olympics in Utah, where she finished sixteenth in the downhill.
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 spoke with the senior manufacturing engineer, a long-time skier himself, about the progression of equipment, signing a prototype helmet for him as she left.
A feature film based on Street's life story was 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.
[12] In the early 2000s, an internet joke spread which claimed Street made a "substantial donation" to her hometown hospital, which named a wing after her, the "Picabo ICU" (as in "Peekaboo!