9802140117
DETROIT FREE PRESS
980214
Saturday, February 14, 1998
METRO FINAL
1
MITCH ALBOM
WINTER OLYMPICS
Copyright (c) 1998, Detroit Free Press
AT HALFWAY POINT, NO STORY TOPS PICABO
NAGANO, Japan -- You can't scare her. You can't break her. You can't hurt her. You can't
unnerve her.
You can't strip her gears. You can't blow her tires. No one knows the size of
her engine, but it never overheats, and even she cannot slam her gas pedal
hard enough. If a part snaps, she repairs it. If the mountain kicks her off,
she grins and kicks it back. There is speed. There is courage. There is risk.
There is reward. They come together, once in a while, in a special person who
refuses to fear the things we all fear, who laughs at danger, chuckles at
horror, is part James Bond and part Amelia Earhart.
Not many women can sparkle even brighter than a gold medal hanging around
their necks.
At the end of the road there is only Picabo.
Easy Street.
She is, as we finish this first week of Winter Olympic competition, the clear
and present heroine, the best and biggest story, a woman who managed to
surprise everyone even as a former medalist from four years ago. That's
because the race Picabo Street won this week was not even her best event. She
won the super-G, and her best event is the downhill, which, already delayed,
comes Monday morning here, weather permitting (and "weather permitting" has
many meanings in Japan, including "next year"). The delay, however, gives
Picabo, 26, a unique chance at owning both weeks of the Games.
True, it's rare a skier wins one Olympic race, let alone two. And it's never
happened in the downhill and super-G -- not by man or woman. But should Picabo
go double-gold with a victory on Monday? They may have to rename the Earth.
Planet Picabo?
The woman from Triumph
Well, why not? If America had to hold up one hero in this Olympiad, wouldn't
this be the perfect profile: a smiling, freckle-faced daughter of a brick
mason and a schoolteacher, who grew up as the only girl in her hometown of
Triumph, Idaho. (Yes, she comes from Triumph. I told you it was perfect.) Even
those critical of the elitist world of ski-racers can't wag a finger: Picabo
was one of the poorest kids on the slopes. Her family didn't own a TV set. Mom
and Dad, free spirits themselves, decided that experience and travel would be
better companions for their children. And so Picabo -- whose name is Indian
for "shining waters" -- played peek-a-boo with parts of the world many of us
never get to see.
She grew up funny and loud and brave and buoyant, a tomboy who could outrun
her male peers on the slopes, yet wore flower-print hippie dresses to
banquets. She took the world by storm in 1994, grabbing the silver medal in
downhill as a virtual unknown in Lillehammer. And while she subsequently
blossomed into a world champion and one of the most popular skiers on the
circuit, even her rivals, who claim she can be a hurricane in a phone booth,
had to stop for a moist-eyed moment when Picabo stood on the medal stand
Wednesday night -- after major knee surgery last year and a serious concussion
two weeks ago -- singing every word of "The Star-Spangled Banner," loud and
proud.
Loud and proud. Isn't that what you want at the Olympics?
"When I was up on the medal stand in Lillehammer," she said, recalling her
second-place finish to German rival Katja Seizinger, "they played the German
anthem, but I couldn't hear a word. I was singing my own anthem in my head.
But from that moment, I yearned to hear it for real. I yearned and I yearned
and I yearned."
When she pulled it off, she yearned no more. Instead she burned -- with pride
and confidence.
"Mom, I just won the gold medal," Picabo said, calling her mother from the
bottom of the hill, "and I'm gonna bring you home another one over the
weekend." Easy Street.
The woman who triumphed
Now, lest you think it all falls in her lap, remember this Street was closed
for repairs just 14 months ago, after she crashed while training in Vail,
Colo. At full downhill speed, Picabo tore the anterior cruciate ligament in
her left knee. The ACL is the injury that ends football and basketball
careers. It robs men of their mobility. And those guys don't go 90 m.p.h.
But Picabo is all about a challenge, has been since her Daddy told her, "Ski
up with me or meet me in the car." A few months after the knee surgery, Street
came to Nagano with a coach and skied the Olympic downhill -- on his back.
"I wanted to visualize the whole thing," she said. "Visualization is a
powerful tool."
We can only imagine what she sees for Monday's race -- when her own feet touch
the ground instead of her piggy-backer's. This is a woman who walked away from
a crash-induced concussion two weeks ago, and who would ride a tuck from gate
to finish. She refers to velocity as "my friend, Mr. Speed," and she was so in
a hurry to play with him during rehab, her coaches skied in front of her to
slow her down.
Now, with a gold medal in her gas tank, who knows how high she'll crank her
speedometer? She is Chuck Yeager on snow, pushing the outside of the envelope.
In the finish area of the super-G Wednesday, a competitor asked whether she
could do it again.
Picabo's response? "Yeah, sure."
Can't break her. Can't scare her. Can't shake her. She is the face we'd like
to show the world, sweet enough to be a girl, tough enough to be a guy, brave
enough to lead a battalion, entertaining enough to host her own talk show. In
an Olympics that has seen enough old-reign stodginess (figure skating judges)
and youthful silliness (snowboarders, marijuana), Picabo Street is a perfect
blend of effort and effervescence, a smile for the stars, a name for the ages,
a promise to keep to her mother. She already stole the first week of these
Games. If she steals the second, she takes immortality with her.
Don't blink.
To leave a message for Mitch Albom, call
1-313-223-4581.
THIS ELECTRONIC VERSION MAY DIFFER SLIGHTLY FROM THE PRINTED ARTICLE.
COLUMN;OLYMPIC;PICABO STREET