Winter Olympics: Last peek at Picabo

E-mail this article Print this article Related stories www.needaticket? Web offers a wealth of choices Games will cost $1.9 billion Haltmayr captures giant slalom, U.S. skier Lalive third Upcoming events Today's spotlight: Women's downhill Tracking Team USA

Viva Picabo.

A month ago in Salt Lake City, our wounded women's winter sports superhero started doing something we never, ever thought we'd see Picabo Street do: playing the game of diminished expectations.

A downhill gold medal to cap off the most distinguished career in U.S. women's skiing? Absolutely, for sure, hell yeah, Street said.

But she wasn't attached to the notion with that same, target-acquired, locked-and-loaded, permission-to-fire bravado we've grown accustomed to.

Street, the former World Cup downhill champ and dual Olympic medalist, was focused on less lofty goals: She wants to carry the flag for the U.S. team in the Opening Ceremonies. And ski well. And not get hurt.

Our first impression: Logical enough. The woman is 30. Battle-scarred, to the max. Engaged to a former U.S. ski team technician (marital tip: No waxing arguments at the table!). She has a book out. She's older. Wiser. Mature.

Second impression: Somebody hold this imposter down while we shake her and scream into her face: "GIVE US PICABO BACK!"

Well, we didn't, but she is. The real Picabo is alive and well in there, waiting for the right moment to bust into the open.

The scoresheets don't lie: While most of us were out treadmilling off excess pumpkin pie, they staged a pair of World Cup downhills at Lake Louise this week. Finishing sixth one day and fifth the next was one Picabo Street. She lurked less than a second back — the kind of place a pack of wolves would hide just before sneaking up on you and ripping out your neck.

Anyone who thinks her best World Cup finishes in three years were luck, serendipity, or some combination of the two hasn't been around long enough to know better.

This carefully paced reemergence from a devastating March 13, 1998 wipeout that destroyed her knee and shattered her femur is about as coincidental as the platter arrangement of the canapes at a board meeting of Martha Stewart, Inc. It's all scripted, baby — right up there inside the helmet of one of America's great female sports icons.

Unfortunately, she is known as much today for her resolve in struggling up the comeback trail as for the time she's spent on top. She's been injured so often, the AFLAC duck knows her by name.

Torn tissue has a long memory. Ask anyone who makes a living careening down an ice-encased mountain at 85 mph — your brain never forgets that first really bad crash. Nor does whatever remains of your ACL.

But winning is addictive. You don't win nine World Cup downhills in a row and forget how it feels to be queen of the mountain. You never forget the rush, and when it's gone, you do what it takes to get it back.

In this case, that's been a lot. The latest crumpling of the vaunted Street superstructure had her down and out for two years, and off the World Cup circuit for almost three.

There can be no question that some of the swagger that made America fall in love with her has been replaced by scar tissue — or that the adrenaline rush she gets when her skis run fast is now mixed with several parts-per-million fear and doubt. More than once, she's finished a race and uttered the words big-time sports stars aren't supposed to know: I was afraid.

It's natural. It's human. And to most recovering ski racers, it's the death knell.

Picabo Street has never been a "most." Don't expect her to start now. Deep down, she believes her greatest moment is yet to come.

Her first-place finish against a world-class field in a Nor-Am race on Snowbasin's Olympic downhill course late last season was no accident — proof to herself, at least, that she can turn it on when she needs to and beat the world's best. Her just-off-the-pace finishes in Canada were no accidents, either.

The Olympics begin in 10 weeks. They will be Picabo's last stand, one chance for the story-book ending. For her, every World Cup race between now and then is little more than an Olympic training run.

This is a risky business: She rides a fiber-optic-thin line. She knows she must push it hard enough to get the World Cup edge back — but hold it all together long enough to avoid the unthinkable. It's like driving with one foot on the pedal, the other just above the brake.

All the while, she tells us she's reached a point where the journey is as important as the destination, where carrying the flag would mean as much as ... blah blah blah.

The truth is that Street has been sweating and working and gunning for three years for one single race — a special February moment high on Mount Ogden, an hour's drive from home in Park City. She knows she's one of those rare champions who can put all the pieces together on that one, historic run — mixing what she calls in her new book "a lot of hard work and a little harmonic convergence" to cross the finish line into history.

Count on this: Barring injuries before then, Street will hit the Wildlflower course at Snowbasin on Feb. 11 with both feet on the gas. It's the only way she can imagine hitting the exit to a career that's been nothing short of a thrill ride for U.S. ski fans.

Yeah, it could be a recipe for disaster.

Or nothing short of Olympic immortality.

Ron C. Judd's columns are published in Sunday's Sports section and Thursday's Northwest Weekend. He can be reached at 206-464-8280 or by e-mail at rjudd@seattletimes.com.