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(crowd cheering)
[Announcer] The Olympic flame is now approaching the stadium.
**
Picabo Street and Cammi Granato.
(crowd cheering)
[News Broadcaster] As the date approaches,
you're going to hear lots about Picabo.
An amazing American
with an unusual name turns Olympic skiing upside down.
[Picabo] I'm going to tell you all about
my year and how ripping awesome it was because
it felt damn good to kick some Europeans butt.
I'll tell you what.
- It's a European sport,
and frankly, we're an embarrassment.
You couldn't find skiing in any newspaper.
Nobody was talking about it.
- Picabo put ski racing back on the map.
[Announcer] One of those rare downhillers
whose name has transcended the sport.
Dorfmeister watches
as Picabo Street replaces her as the leader by over a second.
What an amazing run.
- All of a sudden,
ski racing is being talked about in someone's household.
- My guest is the infamous Picabo Street.
- There's some people where you
know that they've entered the room,
and then there are some people
where you don't really realize they came.
- Thanks, thanks.
- You were tremendous. - You were wonderful.
- When she came into the room, you knew she was there.
- Yahoo!!
(screams)
- In the speed events,
downhill and Super G, Picabo Street is the greatest
North American, male or female ever to race,
and she has paid a physical and emotional price.
- The more fearlessness that you
can demonstrate going down the hill, the better the payoff.
- People ask me,
what are you thinking when you're going that fast?
I said, I'm thinking about how I can go faster.
- For someone to be able to pursue their dream through all
that adversity, it takes someone who is radically committed.
In my experience, every single professional
athlete is running to escape something.
- One of the shining stars
from the 1998 Winter Olympics is in trouble with the law.
Picabo Street has been charged with assault and domestic
violence after an incident involving her father.
- After her career,
she was in the press, and that's when she was really
misunderstood and misrepresented.
- She just had a big heart and liked people and was
naturally inclined to help people.
And I think that helped pave
the way for Lindsey and a whole new generation of skiers, too.
- For all the young ones out there
that have the same dream, go for it.
Because dreams can come true.
- Lindsey's good friend and mentor, Picabo Street.
(cheering)
- Thank you.
When I met her, she was nine years old.
She stood taller than everybody else and she still does.
I'm super proud of how she's
handled becoming the greatest American skier of all times.
Miss Lindsey Vonn!
(cheering)
- I've looked up to Picabo since
I was a little girl, and it means so much to me
to have her here and to be so supportive over my whole career.
- First time, right? - Yep.
Nothing like interviewing your idol for your first time.
(calm music)
- I'm always like,
I hate the cold and everyone's like... What?
- Same with me! They're like, what's wrong?
Why are you cold?
I'm like, because I don't like the cold.
- Never liked it. They're like, Why do I go so fast?
I want to get the bottom.
- Put my clothes on.
- When you started skiing, what drew you to it?
What did you love about it?
Did it change when you were a kid
to when you started racing?
- I don't think so.
I think it was the same thing always.
I just fell in love with the speed.
I fell in love with being able to harness that.
And something inside of me felt like this should feel out
of control all the time, but it doesn't.
And I like making it not feel out of control.
- And do you feel like that is different from your life?
I know for me, skiing was always
the outlet where I felt the most in control.
- I would say that for sure because especially, like,
when you're there and you're going, it's you.
When we're going, it's us.
So you're totally relying
on yourself for everything to come through.
(calm music)
(snap)
- Picabo, you are, like, my hero,
and this is such a full circle moment for me.
I am where I am because of you.
And I still have your poster
that you signed when I was nine in my bedroom.
I brought it here just to like, show you...
- To prove it exists. - Yes.
Yeah, like, when we were racing
together, we're on the same team.
But I was like, your shadow.
And so for me, this is such an honor, and I want to know.
I mean, I know pretty much everything there is to know
about you, but where did it all begin?
Where did Picabo come from?
[Picabo] Triumph was the fun sports game beginning for me.
I would do my chores as well as I could do them to earn
the right to go play and figure out who I was.
Growing up here.
As I've gotten older, I look back on it.
Every time I come back here, I think about how
such a small town and so many really close people.
I felt like I had not just
my family, but the family within the community.
It was like 32 people, very work oriented.
I had my brother, was one of seven or eight boys
in town that I had to interact with.
- So you entertained yourself.
And it was bikes and hiking and
cops and robbers and everything was a competition.
[Picabo] I was competitive all the time.
I mean, I had to beat my brother
to the breakfast, lunch, and dinner table.
I had to beat him down with the food.
I had to beat him down with our
chores when we got home from school.
I mean, I was competing with him
all my life, in everything I did.
- Peeky was pretty tomboyed out because it was all boys
in the community, and she was going to be a better
boy than the boys were, even though she was a girl.
- If you drove by,
you wouldn't know that there was a girl in the mix.
[Picabo] There's a town 20 miles south of Triumph called Picabo.
The way I spell my name,
it has a beautiful river running through it.
And Picabo is
the Native American name for shining waters.
- We were poor, we didn't have money.
We grew our own food.
We went shopping once and you
wore those clothes and rode the school bus.
- This was my favorite spot.
I learned how to ski right there.
Every time I come back and look at it, I think about how steep
it is and how aggressive that was for me to tackle that.
By the end, I'd come bombing down here.
I remember just bombing down and worrying, actually,
that I would go off into Mom's garden and how much trouble I
was going to get if I did that, but I never did.
- How did you do it yourself?
- I just needed it to happen.
- You just grabbed your brother's equipment?
- I waited for them all to go inside.
It was just like, just kind of stealthy out there.
And he comes out like, what are you doing up there?
And I'm like, Watch.
And I skied and didn't fall down.
And I'm sure it wasn't pretty, but showed some skills.
And he was like, wow.
(calm music)
Once I got good enough in the backyard.
Then my first experience was
right over in Sun Valley on Quarter Dollar.
And I got on the chairlift with my brother.
I held on like a little baby the whole way up the chairlift.
We got off the top and I went straight to the bottom.
Straight was fearless, stiff legged snow plow out
there, just bumping along and got to the bottom.
And my brother came down and he said to me, you can turn.
And I said, Why?
One of the things my dad did,
we'd get to the top of the mountain, 9:15 a.m..
And he'd say to me, all right, well, we're headed to the bowls
and you're welcome to come, but keep up.
Otherwise we'll see at the car at four o'clock.
And I'm thinking, four o'clock?!
I don't have any money. I can't get lunch.
I got to keep up.
So, I mean, I learned how to be
the skier I am because of the mountain right here, Baldy.
It's an amazing mountain.
From then on, it's basically been downhill for me.
- She was always chasing the groups ahead of her because
she was beating everybody her own age.
She would beat all the girls and the boys,
and then she'd start going after the groups ahead of her.
The older kids.
Mom said, she goes, I had two jobs in life. With you,
it was keeping you fed.
And she goes as far as Peek, It was keeping her alive.
- She was a full time kid, you know, one of those that you
have to run around after all the time, keep them safe.
- My father raised me like,
you work hard and then you play hard, kind of get your chores
done and then have at it kind of thing.
So, yeah, I've always raised them like that.
[Picabo] My father was a stonemason
and he built some of the coolest
and most beautiful structures in the Sun Valley area.
[Baba] An attribute of dad that a lot
people didn't know is
that the guy would have given you the shirt off on his back.
He was an extremely giving person,
but dad carried a lot of anger in his life.
[Picabo] My father was raised in a very
uncomfortable environment, and he didn't know how to set up
a more comfortable environment himself.
If you grew up in this atmosphere, you know it when
you're asleep and you wake up to your parents fighting.
There's a certain thump on the floor.
There's a certain sound of the slap.
There's a certain
velocity in a voice that stays with you forever.
And I just looked for positive
energy in life where it had it to give me.
I love the view from the top
of a mountain, and it was an escape for me.
[Announcer] On every corner of this
magnificent city, Olympic fever is in the air.
The women's Giant Slalom is the first Alpine event to be held.
Cristin Cooper, Debbie Armstrong,
Tamara McKinney formed the core of America's hope for medals.
[Picabo] I didn't watch TV till I was 13 years old,
and when I saw Cristin Cooper and Tamara McKinney skiing,
I realized, wow, that's what I want to do.
That's where I want to be.
(upbeat music)
That was it. That was me.
That was what I wanted to do.
I, in all my innocence, looked up at my father and said,
Hey Dad, I want to go to the Olympics
and win a medal in skiing.
That's when he turns and goes, Great.
Sounds like a good plan.
Family apples are all going in your basket.
Don't drop it.
From the time when I was 10 to about 15,
we really were hammering everything into my skiing.
All the money we brought in as
a family, cleaning houses, and my dad doing his
stonemasonry went right into me skiing.
- Picabo is remarkable.
Came from a very hard working family.
They didn't have the money to take care of everything,
so we helped her whenever we could.
We went out and found money.
We found equipment.
- It's an expensive sport, we'll call it.
So there's a demographic of people that are involved
in it, and there's a demographic that aren't.
That was what really fueled her
fire to, okay, well, I'm going to beat your ass
in my rags while you're wearing your Gucci.
And she did.
- The very first time she showed up.
And she had mentioned her name
was Picabo, and one of the boys was teasing her about it.
Well, next thing I know, that boy is coming to me.
He's got a bloody nose and he's crying.
And he's going I said, What in the heck happened to you?
And he said, Well, Picabo, she hit me.
And I said, well, why did she hit you?
He says, Because I was teasing her about her name.
I mean, she was just tough.
[Picabo] There were a lot of times when I
just walked away, kind of holding my head low
because I was a little bit embarrassed about how many
people I had beaten, how fast I had actually gone.
And I didn't have anything else
in mind but skiing as fast as I possibly could.
[Announcer] Out front is Jean Claude Killy,
one of the greatest Champions of all time.
[Picabo] My dad, he drove the bus
for the Sun Valley Ski Resort.
He used to drive Jean Claude Killy.
So Jean gets off the bus one
day, and my dad goes, So my daughter's a ski racer.
And John turns around. Oh, really?
It's like, yeah, she skis for the local team here.
She's actually
on the US Development Team now, and she's dreaming of going
to the Olympics and winning a gold medal one day.
And Jean Claude is like, what's her name?
I'll keep track of her.
Then he comes home and tells us
at dinner that night, oh, I told Jean Claude Killy about you.
I'm like, who's that?
He's like, just the greatest skier ever.
It made me super excited.
Like, yeah, my dad believes in me.
But at the same time, I was like (gasps)
(upbeat music)
- I was lucky to be invited to be
the head coach for this junior team.
An amazing group of young women came along, including Picabo.
When she was 14.
Picabo was brash,
and everybody around her was a little brash going,
this is the next Olympic gold medalist, and you've got to take
her immediately onto the ski team,
but you've got to have the maturity with all
the demands of wearing a national team uniform.
[Heidi Voelker] I think back,
being on the US Ski Team at such a young age, it's mind blowing.
I mean, in a sense, the US Ski Team raised us.
We were gone from our families ten months out of the year.
- They're videoing us coming to you live
from Lone, Norway.
- Did you fit in? Do you think? - No.
No, I didn't fit in very much at all.
I was sassy.
I was irreverent and driven.
I was competitive, but more so with myself than anyone else.
- Some of the ski coaches would say,
there's no doubt about it. Picabo street has great
natural ability, but she doesn't work like she should.
- I think they could say that about me at one point in time.
And they did. - At this early stage.
- At this early stage,
when I first got on, they believed that.
And these exact words,
Picabo Street will never amount to anything.
She cannot follow the rules.
(chuckles)
And when I heard that one, I just laughed.
Like, rules are meant to be broken.
And that's kind of how I felt.
And I was going to make it work.
- Don't! It's gonna look so bad on camera.
- I showed up to camp fat, sassy.
And so it was like, you're gone. Boom, out of here.
You're gone off the team, sent home.
Lied to my dad, tried telling me, fine,
I'm training, whatever he's like, here's what's happening.
The apple basket dropped.
The apples are all over everywhere.
And you need to start gathering them up and put them
in a basket, and you need to get on a plane on Monday for Hawaii.
- Your dad, in fact, gave you two options.
He said, either hit the highway or come join me.
And your parents had moved to Maui at the time,
and he was a mason rebuilding walls and things.
He said, Come work with me for a while.
- I think the situation was that it was time for her
to decide if she really wanted it or not.
And we did kind of put her on the spot.
[Picabo] But it's hard to be in Hawaii on boot camp.
- Who was your trainer? - Just my dad.
The Marine stepped in.
- Your dad was a Marine?
- My dad was a Marine. - I didn't know that.
- Yeah.
- So you went back and you did a lot of hard, manual
labor that kind of straightened you out a little bit, didn't it?
- It did. It did straight me out.
I mean, I was studying hard, finishing up my high school.
I couldn't talk on the phone.
I couldn't go out.
I was under Dad's thumb.
I grew a lot.
My dad's and my relationship
bonded at a new level because when I left, he slipped a 50
in an envelope, and he wrote a little note.
And his exact words were,
Your best interest is my only concern.
And I was like, I got to do this.
That's all he cares about.
That's all he wants me to do is be the best that I can be.
And he knows I can be the best in the world.
[Announcer] The United States of America!
(cheering)
- She was really ready to come on in 93.
And that's when we had the World Championships in Morioka.
And she won a silver medal in the combined.
And completely unexpected.
The European coaches were just snickering.
What is this name? Picabo?
It's not even a real name.
- Ching ching!
Oh, my God.
Ching ching. - Go ahead and buy that Harley.
- * I'm gonna be riding a Harley! *
- Did you have any expectations
coming into the World Championships,
Picabo, that a medal was a possibility for you?
- Yeah, I did. For the combined.
I knew that I could for sure be
top five, and I was hoping for a top three.
So, yes.
- I was with the Austrian ski team,
and we had an athlete
that normally should have won the combined.
Her name was Anita Wachter. She was third.
So when I had to do an interview after the race,
the journalist said, So you guys lost a silver medal today?
And I said, no, no, no.
We won the bronze.
And the journalist said, no,
you lost a silver medal because of Picabo.
(crowd cheers) - Woo-hoo!
- And this was actually the first time my ears went up
and said, Okay, who is she?
When you're coaching, when you're connoisseur
of the whole thing, you look at different techniques of skiing.
And one thing that caught my attention was a skill set
that Picabo had. We call it gliding
in a very low tuck and being very fast in flat sections.
And that's a big thing that speed limits.
When you drive 80 miles an hour.
Open up the window and put your
hand out the window, and you're going to go, almost lost my arm.
It gives you a pretty good feeling how the air is
a resistance and also makes noise.
And a lot of athletes at that level can hear
the noise, and they adjust their body position very clearly.
- She could generate speed by just
gliding on the snow that nobody else we've ever seen do.
[Picabo] I went in the scientific wind
tunnel that they use to measure our aerodynamics.
- With the hands and the arms
you've got to come out there.
[Picabo] I spent 35 minutes with the guy
on different kinds of stances and positions, trying to figure
out which one was the best for me.
And my legs got tired, and I just kind of relaxed
into this really low, comfortable position.
My drag dropped three points.
We both looked at each other
and smiled like, oh, my goodness,
we just found a little edge that no one will ever have it.
[Announcer] Welcome to Norway.
Where once again, Winter Games will be played.
Only now there will be cheering
crowds, and all the world will see.
- We were just thrilled that she had made the Olympic team.
She was in high 20's.
30 result skier, which at that point,
you're the 30th best skier on the planet.
That's pretty impressive.
- I remember being beside myself to go to the first Olympics.
This is the real deal.
We are super far away from home,
meeting all the other athletes and getting in your uniform and
finally getting something that says USA in letters
that you're going to put on your back like, oh, my goodness.
[Announcer] Welcome United States of America.
- It's like, it's happening! This is real.
(crowd cheering)
[Announcer] More than 170,000 race fans
have made their way to Norway's white Mountain, Kvitfjell.
They have created an unparalleled festive
atmosphere under bright, sunny sky.
- The interesting story behind Lilyhammer
is the original course they picked was on a different
mountain, and the top part was relatively flat.
There was nobody on the planet
who could ski flats as fast as Picabo.
German team is protesting.
Got to move this race
from the women's course to the men's course.
- Olympic history will be made here at Kvitfjell
in the downhill, where for the first time ever,
the women will compete on the same course as the men.
- It's a European sport, and we were total underdogs.
(indistinct announcer)
What's gratifying is stay
focused and, frankly, beat the Europeans at their own game.
[Announcer] Seizinger. There's the leading time now by 1.24.
We're back at Kvitjfell, and it's time for Picabo Street.
(Picabo singing)
- What are you listening to? - Gabriella.
[Announcer] Her thing is going fast,
and she's next to chase Katja Seizinger
and her teammate, Hilary Lynn.
Picabo's parents,
who arrived a couple of days ago
here for the big moment.
(beep)
- All right, Peek. (indistinct) Come on.
(beep)
[Announcer] Aerodynamic foil on top of her boot
so that she slides better
through the air down here on the flat.
Now, Picabo is known for being a great glider.
She has a very fine feel for the snow.
Let the speed run over it well, and it's so amazing.
I mean, a year ago at this time, Picabo Street,
nobody would have known her name.
And she went to medal in the decline
at the World's Championship and ever since then
she's just gotten better and better with every race.
[Picabo] I had someone ask me, what is it about skiing for you?
And I said, it's the speed.
Your skis are kind of like your
race car, but you're driving it from a real raw place.
It doesn't get much more intense
than that as far as being in that danger element.
Control over that amount
of speed and those aggressive of physical movements
and that many G-Forces in a turn that are solely created by me.
(crowd cheers)
[Announcer] One more turn to the final.
Into the finish area.
(indistinct)
Seventy miles an hour to the finish line for Picabo Street.
Into second place.
(cheering)
(upbeat music)
For Picabo Street, in her first Olympics, Silver was great.
- I expected a medal.
I wanted myself to ski well enough to get a medal,
but I was going to settle for a top five, so I still
came home with the medal. That's excellent.
* *
[Announcer] Number two, Picabo Street!
[Picabo] The whole idea that I actually
did it and my dream came true.
Sometimes I still have to pick the medal up and actually get it
in my hand to believe that it really happened.
And then all the memories flow.
The thing that it's created
for me is a bright spot in my life that I have to look
at and remember and to brighten my day.
* *
[Announcer] The winner of the silver medal.
(foreign language)
Picabo Street.
(foreign language)
(cheering)
(crowd singing)
[Picabo] It was all really really super cool,
except for one moment.
The wrong (bleep) flag went up the center.
It was not our flag.
I was a silver medalist.
So as I watched them go up... - Oh, yeah.
- I'm watching mine.
I'm not hearing my anthem.
I'm seeing my flag, but I'm not hearing my anthem.
So it's this moment of like,
I will never step back on this
stage again and hear someone else's anthem.
(indistinct chatter)
My whole family and I just took
a big (sighs) sigh, like, okay, we did it.
Everything that we ever thought
we could do, and as far as we thought we could make it,
we were right.
- And we are most pleased to be joined now by Picabo Street.
Newly Crown silver medalist in ladies downhill.
Congratulations to you. - Thank you.
(crowd cheers)
- It was the warrior came home with the victory.
- Picabo, can I get my picture taken with you?
- Sure! - Alright.
[Picabo] The top of my list for things
I'm aiming at, being a role model
now and what not, I'm aiming to the children,
more so than anything. I get such a pleasure out
of being around the kids and seeing what I mean to them.
- She couldn't just walk through
the airport anymore without being recognized.
(cheering)
[Announcer] Downhill silver medalist
Picabo Street arrived in Salt Lake City.
- Her winning and her success made
the family successful and gave opportunities.
Even at 21 years old, that's a lot on someone's shoulders.
- Picabo, we're thinking about making you a Gladiator.
How about that?
- Well, I got to win some more medals first.
Elmo.
I didn't win a medal for playing Picabo.
- No?
- And we've named a street after you.
You have your own street.
And there's...
(clapping)
[Picabo] My dad gave me a sweater,
and he bought me in Glamor, and I wore it.
And I remember feeling really stoked to be, like,
honoring Norway and honoring the Olympics and honoring my dad.
And
he was my Superman and my all in advocate and the person
who believed in me the most and did the most for me.
But he was also the biggest distraction.
I think he honestly spent his
entire adult life in denial that he had diabetes.
There was a point in time when
he was manageable as a diabetic, right?
I'd catch him, he'd be like, I'd come home,
and he'd be on the couch with the remote like this.
- But if I said, hey, dad, you need to get a drink.
Then here came the combative,
oh, you just, you just...
you just, you know,
mess with me, leave me alone.
And those times would escalate,
and you get into situations where
it can get physical.
And we had that, too.
We had domestic violence.
[Picabo] He had kicked my mom so hard
in the shoulder up against the cabin that he separated her
cartilage off her sternum
and broke a rib.
I headed home to be the referee
and be in the middle of my family dynamics again.
The pressure on us as a family to try and maintain our
composure, for me to keep our big secret secret,
and for all these corporations are going,
We love you. You're this great all American
family, and we want to support you.
And so here I am all along, trying to make the show
with my skiing and be this positive, like all American.
And I'm fighting to get this done.
And I'm representing, and you can, too.
And it doesn't matter where you came from.
And all the while, I'm like...
And you just keep fighting and grinding and struggling through.
Climbing that next mountain, looking for that next view.
(indistinct announcer)
[Announcer] Silver in the Olympics,
but never a World Cup winner. Picabo Street has been
a threat to fix that every time out.
World Cup win seems only a matter of time.
(upbeat music)
[Picabo] I don't know why, but it seemed to me like a lot
of times Americans would rise out of nowhere,
win an Olympic medal, and then fall back into nowhere again.
(indistinct announcer)
- The fact that I walked away from a beater like that without
getting hurt was something that was pretty significant
to me, that, believe it or not, gave me a lot of confidence.
And that was kind
of the confidence I needed to go into the season.
And I just built from there.
I never set out to be a flash in the pan in the sport.
And what the Olympics did for me
is proved to me that no matter how intense the level
of competition you throw at me, I'm ready for it.
(upbeat music)
[Announcer[ Street was skiing against 1:41:51
and she didn't just beat it, she destroyed it.
And so the day belonged
to Street, her first ever World Cup win.
Street's margin of victory in skiing terms was huge.
- I'm extremely happy, I can't
explain how happy I am right now.
- When you win in Europe
for the first time, you are a superstar.
You're just looked upon differently.
- We went from showing
that there's huge potential to full on, very quick.
- In sports, Olympian Picabo Street is
making skiing history this season.
Racing in Austria, Street won her third straight
World Cup downhill, something no American has ever done.
She has now won four downhills this year. That is one more than
any American, male or female, has ever won.
(indistinct announcer)
(upbeat music)
- With two races remaining,
Street is first in the World Cup downhill standings.
No American has ever won the downhill title.
[Picabo] We sat down that night in Ernst goes
the deal is you're leading
the downhill standings by so far that if you finish the top three
tomorrow, you'll win the downhill title tomorrow.
And I was like, wow!
(crowd cheering)
(announcer speaking in foreign language)
- It was the first time ever that the
US won the overall title in downhill.
(announcer speaking in foreign language)
[Picabo] Standing on that top step,
receiving that globe like it's the most comfortable zone I've
been in, because that's a day in, day out grind.
There's no,
That was a flash in the pan. That was a fluke.
Nothing. There's no writing that off.
(announcer speaking in foreign language)
- I'm really happy with the whole season.
I wasn't able to continue
at quite that high level, winning every race like
Picabo, but I was consistently in there every single race,
and I think it's ended on a good note.
- It's incredible.
I've been around for a long
time, so it's not that easy to get.
That's an incredible
accomplishment for American skiing.
- When they handed that thing
to me, it was one of the more unexpected
and gratifying moments in skiing for me.
But what I realized, as many competitors do,
once you win one, you want another one.
It's addicting.
(laughter)
Oh, I'm not crying. No way.
Just the downhill title. Ha!
I cried like a baby when they put that thing in my hand.
(indistinct chatter)
- We were the team to beat and to drive into every one
of these resorts and show up and be the team to beat.
The Americans hadn't felt like
that for 15 years, so that was a big change.
[Announcer] Picabo Street from Sun Valley, Idaho.
- Olympic silver medalist
Picabo Street has a winning personality to go with her
winning streak. And what a streak.
You and Hilary Lynn.
I mean, did you win every single race but one downhill this year?
- Yeah, we did. It was an interesting year
for sure, for the Europeans to be chasing the Americans
for the first time ever.
(cheering)
I feel awesome about what I've
just done, and believe it or not, it's made me more hungry.
If you can leave it to win more. I'm such a pig.
I can't get enough, but I'm into it.
I'm liking winning, and I'm going to continue.
- I have a letter from
Mr. Bill Clinton in the White House,
our President of the United States. Miss Picabo Street.
- Finally! (laughter)
- Dear Picabo, your exceptional talent and your winning attitude
have captured the hearts of Americans and earned
the admiration of athletes around the globe.
(clapping)
- Now, my message to the kids, get out and free ski and let
this mountain turn you into the skier that you can be.
Because it will.
The feeling of flying on your boards with 7,000 pounds of
G-Force on your leg and you're just making the fattest arc
and there's no snow coming off your edge and, you know,
you're just smoking and it's like, that's the feeling.
It's the scheme feeling that you know and you yearn for.
And when you feel it, there's nothing better in the world.
There is nothing that's tops a flat ski arc.
(laughter and applause)
- You changed the game as far as getting sponsors,
being in the media in that way, you put skiing on the map.
You are the reason why I did all the things that I did.
Business too.
You transcended skiing.
- I remember being really proud to be a Nike athlete.
I was their first winter athlete, period.
The wind howls because it knows it has to race me.
I have my own shoe, which I still have some.
- I remember being like, Holy (bleep)
A ski racer has a freaking shoe.
That for me was like, this is what's possible.
- Yeah.
- Like you raised the glass ceiling by a thousand.
- Do we out our GS skis in the cargo again?
- GS skis in the cargo.
- My mom and dad didn't come watch me race a lot,
so when they did
come to watch me race, it was really special.
And I remember my mom coming over to Europe.
The chamois hang out up there on the rocks.
- Yeah. - In the sun, in the morning.
- There is a big portion of her
life that she grew up on the road away from mom.
She went from a girl to a woman on her own in a hotel room.
So the moments that they had to come together, they cherished.
- Good morning. - Morning.
- That's a ski. - I'm a beginner.
(laughter)
* Little darling *
* It's been a long cold *
* lonely winter *
* Little darling *
* It seems like years since it's been clear *
* Ohhh *
* Here come the sun *
- This is so gorgeous
and dramatic.
- Rocks! Big rocks.
- It's nice having your mom here.
Is that an inspiration?
- Oh, yeah, totally. She hasn't ever been
to a European race before, so it's fun for me to know
that she's getting to see it over here.
She's getting to see
the whole European scene and how big of a deal it is here.
- That's great.
- Plus, it's nice for her to meet
all the people here that I know and that I talk about all
the time that are all my friends and the people in my life
for eight months out of the year.
(calm music)
- We've conquered the Castle,
we kicked the Austrians and the Germans and the Italians off.
They are angry.
What we got to do now is we got
to come up with a plan to stay at the top.
- You just have to stand on it where everybody said to you,
It's not like you're going to get thrown all around.
The ice patches are not that bad.
- Defending the spot is tough.
The visualizing of where we want to go is very important.
The dream to be there.
I always had the feeling that Picabo
very nicely reacted to images like this.
(calm music)
[Announcer] Picabo Street
came to Sierra Nevada with only one thing in her mind.
The gold medal in her favorite discipline, the downhill.
Over a second ahead of anybody else.
And Street, who is a real gliding machine.
Her own unique style slicing through the air.
(announcer speaking in foreign language)
(yelling indistinctly)
(cheering)
[Announcer] Picabo Street had a massive advantage.
Point 65 on a second.
(Picabo screaming)
- I'm the guy that, I over amp, just like that.
So I can take her too far.
Where Baba can mellow her out.
- Did you hear dad yelling when you got to the finish?
- Yeah, I did. He was the first person I heard.
I turn around and he's going, yeah.
I'm like, Hi, dad.
- What were you thinking about
when you were going off the jump?
- Well, I'll tell you what.
Looking at the ground way down there.
I went, oh, my God.
I caught so much air. Holy.
And then I was like, okay, get back in the course.
Get back in the course. - I love it.
I don't get to see a race a lot,
but on TV and you can smell it and hear it here.
Like, car racing stuff.
(whistling)
(indistinct announcer)
- To win. What was it?
Two overall titles?
Back to back.
That is...
That's big time.
* Picabo knows what to do *
* She's a downhill pilot *
* And a snow girl runner *
* Picabo gonna get you *
- I remember working with some
graphics people at Nike on a commercial called Sister Slope.
And she was this, like, cartoon animated character of me.
Oh, she was so rad.
Long hair, great long legs, purple downhill suit.
* *
They were supposed to release it
for that next season, but I blew my knee out.
[News Broadcaster] Picabo tore ligaments
and cartilage in her left knee when she crashed during
a practice run in Vail, Colorado.
Street is not expected to ski again for at least six months.
[Picabo] I had tasted that success.
I had won those races. I had won the title.
And it was like, dangle dangle. - The downhill title.
The World Championships. - Exactly.
And so here's... - The Olympics.
- Here's another year of smoking everybody.
But nope. Instead, we're going to sideline you for a second.
[News Broadcaster] So like many skiers before her,
Picabo was wheeled into the operating room of
Dr. Richard Steadman.
One of the best knee surgeons in the world.
But unlike other skiers,
Picabo insisted she'd be awake for the entire operation.
- What were you doing with that?
(indistinct)
- Okay.
I talked to him a lot during. I was asking him a lot
of questions, and it was very interesting and it seemed
very difficult. And he's very good at it.
- Who's driving that thing?
- It's not me! (laughter)
Yee-haw!
Fixed up. Ready to go.
- I'm Jake Shores.
I am a chiropractor that's trained in neurology.
So she first injured her left ACL in '89,
and then she did it again in 1996.
The fact that she did the same thing twice
makes the surgery more difficult,
the recovery more difficult.
And then most of the time you're gonna have
a greater decrease in function
because of the compromise of the joint.
- She tore the medial collateral ligament,
which keeps the knee from going this way.
She tore a back corner ligament in this area,
which protects in this direction.
She stressed this ligament
and then she also bruised the bone
in the back of the joint.
And then actually had a small compression fracture
of the bone in this area when the knee went like that.
So it was an extensive injury.
- That's why you needed a little more room
in that canal was to get that piece of bone through there.
- To get it through just right. - Before you screwed it on.
Little fat little screws.
- Five, four, three, two, one.
Relax. Good.
(Picabo exhaling shakily)
- [Doctor] What's that?
- [Picabo] I'm trying really hard.
- [Doctor] I know you are.
- From my perspective,
it doesn't seem like it changed anything,
but you didn't question what you were doing
or where you were going,
or if you were gonna make the Olympics from that point?
- No, there wasn't a question at all.
It was like, how,
pardon my French, but how (bleep) long
is this break gonna take 'cause I didn't order this breakup.
(wind howling)
- Back where we belong, huh?
- [Reporter] So Peek, how's the road
from recovery been for you?
- It's been great, actually.
What it has done is let the love of skiing resurface for me
and that's what I'm feeling right now.
I think I was so excited actually,
when I got to the top last time that I literally puked.
The skiing feels absolutely awesome.
Wind in my face, just,
just right.
The knee is perfect.
Working just like it's supposed to.
It's just a little bit weak, obviously,
because it's just needs some more time.
(anticipatory music)
I mean, it was great to be back on snow and all,
but definitely wasn't ready.
- [Newscaster] Street has had several setbacks.
Picabo is still not ready to join her teammates
and is getting away from the media's glare.
Last week, she went off to a secret location
for more training and more rehab.
- The most intense training that I had had going in
was in super G.
We were trying to emulate downhill
and we were running real fast super G
for two weeks straight in Colorado.
- [Newscaster] Most observers say Picabo
is simply running out of time
to be a serious threat in Nagano.
- Sweden was the last race before the Olympics.
The new-shaped ski was what everybody was on,
but I couldn't get them figured.
In downhill, especially the speed events
there has been a concern about being able
to limit the speed of the athletes
because our athletes today are so much stronger,
they're better trained, in the equipment is a lot better.
There is a concern about building up too much speed.
(announcer speaking indistinctly)
- With the opening of the Winter Olympics in Nagano
now less than a week away,
America's Picabo Street suffered a mild concussion
and some cuts and bruises, but no serious injury
when she lost a ski and fell yesterday
during a downhill run in Sweden.
- Usually the sooner she calls after we know
that the race she's run,
the better chances are that she's won,
and, boy, Dee and I were
fighting over each other to the phone to, "Hello?"
And it's like, (breathing heavily) "I'm all right."
- Ah, I broke juniors.
- "I broke my skis, dad. I broke my skis."
And I'm going, "Then you're in one piece?"
She's going, "Yeah, I've got a little bit of dizziness
and my eye's quivering and my neck is sore."
And I'm going "Well, hang in there,
we'll get you home and patch you up
and we'll get to Nagano."
(stately brass music)
- [Announcer] And the Olympic torch
has been winding through Japan,
visiting every part of the country
on its way to the Olympic stadium.
In the end, it'll have touched over 6,600 hands
on the way to the Olympic cauldron.
50,000 people are expected to gather here
for this opening ceremony.
Ancient religious rituals mixed with modern technology
blending together in a songful prayer
of hope for the 21st century.
The United States is next.
(crowd cheering) (bells jangling)
Led by flag bearer Eric Flaim.
- Did you know, the team voted me to carry the flag
in the opening ceremonies?
- But you didn't? - I won that popularity.
That was like such- - That's huge.
- A big moment in my life as an Olympic athlete.
I was like, (gasping)
but I said, "I can't do it.
I'm hurt. And I need rehab and I can't go early."
(slowly building triumphant music)
(jet engines roaring)
- Was she 100% at the Games in Nagano?
That you normally have with an athlete? No.
- [Announcer] They're the best in super G this season.
Seizinger of Germany,
Ertl of Germany,
along with the Austrian Geotschl
and Isolde Kostner, always dangerous from Italy.
Picabo Street way down on the pack
where she skied only four
of the six super G's so far this year.
(skiers chattering) (radio squawking indistinctly)
- We did something really outside the box that day
where after we inspected the course in the morning,
I saw it was a very straightforward course set
that they normally don't have in super G
because the core setter was a Russian
and one of his athletes had a huge chance to win a medal.
So he set a course that was basically straight.
I spoke with my coach and said,
"Pull out the downhill skis
and give it a shot because they were no turns."
(radio chatter in foreign language)
- [Coach] Okay.
- Gather all my stuff, out the door to the ski room.
I get to the ski room,
and my downhill training skis are outside the ski room.
And I'm like, "Wait a minute."
- And then I spoke with Picabo and I said to Peek,
"We're gonna let you go on the downhills skis today.
What do you think?"
And she said, "Whatever you say."
And when you have trust with an athlete, it's really cool.
[Announcer] It will be a smooth track for her.
A possibility it'll get faster by the time Seizinger runs
because it's sunny out there
and a glaze might form on the track.
(horn blaring) - Go, go, go, go, go!
- [Announcer] And America's Picabo Street.
She's never won in super giant slalom before,
but she said at a press release prior today's competition
she's really desperate to do well in this event
as part of her preparation to take the downhill title
of the Olympic Games away
from Germany's Katja Seizinger, very much her archrival.
- She's had only seven races this year,
coming back from the knee injury of December '96
and a crash at Are, Sweden last week.
- This is where she excels.
She's got a natural ability to work the terrain
beneath her skis while in a tucked position.
She just feels the snow.
(muffled crowd exclaiming)
There's that first jump, goes back,
and she gets through it a little bit wide.
That's gonna cost her, Tim.
[Announcer] She's getting bounced around on the hairpin.
Sun Terrace hairpin.
Now a series of tight technical turns.
Getting good pressure against the turning ski,
nice and high and early.
This is good skiing from Street.
- Picabo Street, in early trouble,
now flying over this top.
- Using her downhill skills
to good effect off these rollers.
These jumps throwing the skier into the air.
Street, never better than eleventh on the World Cup tour,
but the Olympic Games is a special temperament.
A special psych is required.
And look at the margin.
1.14 seconds faster than Ingeborg Helen Marken
Picabo Street has had a flyer.
- When she popped that run, nobody ever said,
"We've got the gold now."
It's hold your breath until the last girl crosses the line
and then for sure.
- This is Michaela Dorfmeister,
a 25-year-old from Neuchatel, Austria.
Here she is, racing for gold in the Olympics super G.
- A beautiful flight.
She stays in her tuck all the way through.
No, this woman is not your average Austrian hausfrau.
- There is the time to beat Dorfmeister
over the final jump.
One one hundredth behind.
Dorfmeister, she's in the second place
and she nearly got into first.
But it will be gold for Picabo Street.
[Woman] Yeah, Peeky!
- Her first ever victory in a super G race
for Picabo Street, and it is Olympic gold.
- Mom? Hi, mom.
Mom, I won.
(laughs) Thank you.
Thanks, Mom. I miss you.
I wish you were here.
(laughs) It's okay, I'm gonna win more than one, mom.
I'm gonna bring them both to Maui, okay? (laughs)
(man speaking in foreign language)
I love you too. Wanna talk to dad?
- That snow will kick your ass.
- That will kick us both, dad.
Great, did you talk to mom?
- Yeah, mom knows.
(gentle music)
- What a day. - What a day.
It's a dream come true for me
It's something that everyone dreams of all their life
when they're an athlete.
And for me, it's been such a difficult season.
I've had so many ups and so many downs.
It's been really long, you know?
It's been a long time that I've been waiting
to get back into form to be able
to attack the course all out.
- If it was me, I would've cried now.
- I've already cried and stopped and cried and stopped.
So it's been very emotional.
[Announcer] And in second place, Michaela Dorfmeister.
(gentle inspirational music)
[Announcer] Medals will be presented
by Mr. John Claude Killy IOC member in France,
downhill, giant slalom
and special slalom gold medalist in Grenoble in 1968.
Olympic champion and gold medalist Picabo Street,
United States of America.
(crowd cheering)
- When John Clark puts the metal around my neck,
he knew he had crushed me, right.
He knew it. And he said,
your father told me we're gonna do
this when you were a kid.
I'm so proud of you and I'm so glad to be here
so honored, so honored to be here, to give you this.
(crowd cheering)
(gentle inspirational music)
("The Star-Spangled Banner" playing)
So I started singing there,
I'm dumb and I'm crying and singing in the hall.
It's just like the culmination of
everything coming together
in one shot it's magical,
you feel like a rock star,
you're crying because the joy in your belly
is so beyond anything you thought it would ever
be and you thought it would be
the most wonderful thing ever,
and it's better than that.
(crowd applauding)
[Announcer] Congratulations to these Olympic champions.
(gentle spirited music)
[Picabo] The night after I won my gold medal
that was a super fun night
and the next day was like a twilight zone.
My dad had ended up MIA for a little while,
and so he kind of spun and did his usual deviation of,
"oh, let me just blow myself off
and not take care of myself."
- We went out and partying.
We got home and I'm going,
"God, you can't get food out.
I don't want to hear about it," whoa.
And then Baba pushed her button and (bleep)
(mumbling)
and he went up to cool it and went to bed.
[Picabo] I remember him coming back to the house
you know I said, "where were you?"
And he's like, "oh, just out for a walk."
He had run into Tim Layden, a sports illustrated writer.
Do I need to worry about that one?
Maybe.
Needless to say was pretty distracting.
Definitely, the closest we had come
to the elephant in the room being
seen and our secret coming out,
and I didn't have a lot of gusto after that for,
you know getting feisty on the hill.
- This is the first Olympic winter where
all of the Alpine skiing events have been rescheduled.
The erratic weather has stopped them from skiing
five out of the past eight days but today finally,
they're able to ski.
[Announcer] The ladies' downhill.
(crowd cheering)
(air horn blowing)
(crowd cheering)
(announcers chattering)
(calm suspenseful music)
[Commentator] Feather soft touch on the snow.
- She is almost just too behind.
- And she too gets thrown a little bit wide,
but you can see there's just there's room to move on this
course. I don't think that a perfect line
is gonna be essential today.
You've gotta just let the skis run and attack the course
and Picabo sure did that.
- That is great split time on 2.05,
she is only 5.100, she's picked up a little here.
- We didn't walk away with two.
So it's a disappointment for me,
normally should be a disappointment for Picabo too.
It's a disappointment for the coaching staff
because we'd lost the focus.
[Interviewer] What does having a gold medal
in your hip pocket before
you do the downhill, do to your frame of mind in downhill?
- Well it's tough, it's really tough because I think there,
there probably would have been more hunger surfacing in me,
but I try and look at the big picture all the time and not
get too caught up in the little picture.
And the big picture is maybe I would have risked too much
and hurt myself again today.
If I had been that hungry and not had won that gold medal
already the super G's.
I lost my downhill ski on a couple of turns
and that scary, you know, I actually screamed.
I'm just glad to be standing down
here talking to you one piece.
I didn't want to hit the fence again today.
So I skied a bit tentative
and you just can't do that with this field.
They're too good.
It's amazing how our greatest moments can
like they can crush us, like that was a crushing one.
- The whole emotional power that Picabo had
was kind of empty after she won the gold medal
and we had to finish the season.
We had new skis, new equipment.
- I had blown off racing
on the shape skis before Nagano
'cause I wasn't familiar with
them and didn't like them.
So I went for it in the Crans.
- American Olympic skiing champion Picabo Street is
spending Friday the 13th in a hospital in Switzerland,
Street fell today in the last world cup
downhill race of the season and broke her left leg.
Her doctor said, it'll be many months now
before she skis again.
(Picabo wailing in pain)
- I couldn't feel my body.
I couldn't feel my legs and I was really scared
I was paralyzed, and I rolled over and everything came with
me and I was so happy that everything moved with me,
but then the pain set in.
It's crazy, it was the best and the worst year of my life,
I laid in the hospital and was just lost really
for several days going, "what is going on?
What is it just happened to me?"
And it's always kind of in this pattern in my life,
whenever anything really good happens.
I need to just start holding my breath because I know a
disaster is right around the corner
so that it can stay balanced.
- What was it like to go from the extreme of winning
the Olympics to being there with their leg broken in Crans?
(Picabo chuckles)
- It was a very, very dramatic transition
that produced depression and I closed everything up
and I just wanted to stay home.
I couldn't get up and go anywhere and I didn't want to,
you know, my legs couldn't carry me anywhere.
- She fractured her left femur,
which is the hardest bone in your body to break.
And this time she injured the lateral meniscus
of a right knee.
They went in and fixed it and surgically
adhered it with plates.
However you do that knowing that in a few months,
they're gonna go back in,
cut you back open to pull the plate out
and then you have to rehab all over again.
- I'd just catch myself crying.
and then it all pours in as to why?
And it's different things all the way
from those little things that I said before,
like "oh my, my legs are getting small
they're atrophying right underneath me"
to, "oh you know how am I gonna get out of this?"
To, "gosh do I even want to ski anymore?"
I mean, it's heavy this time.
[News Broadcaster] In the speed events, downhill
and super-G, Picabo Street is
the greatest North American male or female ever to race.
And she has paid a physical and emotional price.
Note that no other US skiers are in the top five.
A two time Olympic medalist,
two-time World Cup downhill champ, and World Champion.
Street has nothing left to prove.
(soft music)
- Does it hurt, physically hurt again when you watch it?
- It hurts my heart.
It hurts my stomach, my soul, you know, deep inside.
Like the part that drives me, it hurts that part.
And that has never been touched before.
(soft music)
- And that thing that got me out of it was
actually Mother's Day came.
And I hadn't been out of my room in quite some time.
And I thought, maybe I'll go wish my mom
a Happy Mother's Day in the kitchen today.
It's really far away, but I think I can make it.
And I had been interacting with my mom
'cause I needed her help to go to the freaking bathroom.
I'm an Olympic champion, I'm a World Champion.
I still need my mom.
(crowd cheering)
It was just one slow step at a time.
[Reporter] Nike had about 600 girls
on-campus today.
And many of them were there to get a peek at Picabo.
- Back at her first appearance
in Oregon today, since she broke her leg in Switzerland.
- I've missed you guys, how have you been?
Good? - Good!
- Woo!
- When she hurt herself in 98,
dad and I were absolutely, and mom,
adamant about, "Look, you need to rehab,
and you need to come back with the mindset
that you're gonna be a world-class athlete again.
That way, even if you're not,
you at least will be able to walk up and down stairs
for the rest of your life."
Because it was a very serious injury that she went through.
(sensor buzzing)
[Reporter] Making light of
her injuries in a Nike ad
also helped Picabo turn the corner.
[Picabo] When they first proposed that to me,
I was like, "No!
I can not believe that you guys wanna make fun of my legs.
I am insulted."
And then I kind of sat and thought about it,
and I kind of digested it a little bit.
And then I went, "You know what?
Maybe it would be exactly what I need."
(audience applauding)
- For the International Olympic Committee,
has decided
to award the organization of the 19th Olympic winter games
in 2002 to the city of Salt Lake City.
(crowd cheering)
- Towards the end of my career, I started to gauge,
like, I knew nothing was gonna top
the Olympics in Salt Lake.
Win, lose, or draw.
Like, come on!
The Olympics in front of American crowd.
Boo yah!
Like, it doesn't get better, I don't care.
- So many skiers, you know, we had so many injuries,
and they get injured and that's their last race.
It's nice to be able to end on your own terms.
[Reporter] Now, after 20 months
of grueling rehabilitation,
Picabo is back on her skies,
and considering another Olympic run.
- You gotta make Nationals.
Then you gotta make the Olympic team.
It isn't like, "Oh, well you won four years ago.
So we're automatically gonna put you on the team."
No, she had to, she had to go race in New Orleans
and Europe with tubs.
[Interviewer] You can't have fear when you're going down
that mountain at 80 miles an hour, not even an ounce.
- No, because it's the mountain is like a dog.
It's going to smell that fear.
And it's going to get ya.
It's going to bite you.
I'll be ready probably by November,
December to hit the fence again, I'm not planning on it,
but I've got to be ready for that.
If I want to get back.
- Throughout Peak's career, the injuries that she sustained,
left her in a position that as she is recovering
and training for the salt lake games in 2002,
she's doing it on the knees of someone who's probably in
their mid 60's to early 70's.
- And you have to be very careful two work through the
comback to gain back the trust to the equipment
that's within the mind of the ski racer.
- Do I have the right to say I don't want
to go if it's foggy?
- No
- No.
All right.
- From letting it loose and really go full blast
and push the limit.
It, it all happens in the, in the head.
It happens in the, in the brain.
- 10 seconds,
5,4,3
- Go, go, go, go
- The worst part about it is packing your bags
and living out of them and being away from all
the people that you really care about.
You start to think about who, you know,
who am I and what am I doing?
(audience cheering)
Am I stuck in this little world
of I'm a competitive athlete?
And that's what I'm all about.
And, and I'm not evolving as a person.
- Three months, four months of a year, and the same bag,
you know, when you're skiing well,
yeah, it is glamorous,
but when you're skiing slow and you're not performing, it's,
it's lonely on the road.
- So the training program's getting juggled around and it's,
and it's getting specific,
whether or not to come to a dry line camp now is a little
bit iffy and, you know,
sit next to the volleyball coach
and watch them play volleyball.
That kills me, you know,
but I show up anyway and like today I'm not going to
water-ski cause I shouldn't, I can, but I shouldn't.
So I'm gonna get in the water and I'm just gonna run in
the water and get a good workout.
Ooh.
Yeah.
Well we've brought obviously some young girls up.
So Julia Mancuso and Lindsey Kildow are our both very,
very good young skiers.
- When I was a little kid,
I wanted to be famous and I want to be
the most decorated skier of all time.
They want what I've gotten and more.
And that to me is what I want to see.
That's what I want to see when I look in their eyes,
because I don't want to walk away from the sport,
knowing that I set some pretty big footsteps
that may not be stepped in.
- That winter, I just kind of like, I, I was your shadow.
I don't know if you remember that in a sermonic.
Do you remember the camp that we had there?
And I, we were skiing super-G and I said,
"what are you looking at in inspection"
because I wanted to know like what you're looking at.
And you said,
"I'm looking at the fall line."
And I said," how did you know,
how do you know where the fall line is?"
And you said, "I can't tell you, you just have to know"
- You knew though that's why,
cause you love the fall line and you're in it all the time.
- I know.
But like, I remember that.
- Tamara said to me one time,
you're-- she didn't say you were a disaster.
Like she didn't flat out to me, but she said to me,
"she says, you have an incredible fire.
And when you finally learn how to channel it, right,
you're going to be unbeatable."
And I was like,
"what does that mean?
What do I do?
How do I do that?"
Like, yeah. Okay.
So that was our, that was that exactly.
- Wow.
- At that point in your career,
I think you're just on a different trajectory
and I wasn't sure like what your mindset was.
- What?
- Take a picture
- Ooh yes - Who?
- All together?
- We're going to go to the, the, the stadium,
(crowd cheering)
[Announcer] Ladies and gentlemen,
welcome to the opening ceremony of
the 19th Olympic winter games.
(trumpets blowing)
(crowd cheering)
- Picabo Street, said she probably would have retired,
had not the next Olympics been in her home country.
So she's back for a last hurrah.
[Announcer] The Olympic flame is now approaching
the stadium.
(crowd cheering)
Picabo Street and Cammi Granato.
(Crowd cheering)
- Proud members of
the Olympic team. Each a gold medalist in Nagano.
Street is a skier, Granato is captain of
the women's hockey team.
And soon the moment everyone has been waiting for.
- I remember it being this really methodical, euphoric,
almost like dreamy moment of climbing up those stairs,
holding the torch.
[Reporter] Street and Granato march by Mike Eruzione,
from the Miracle on Ice hockey team of 1980
that won the gold medal.
[Picabo] It was so cool to be a part
of such a beautiful moment for our country
and for the Olympics.
[Announcer] Gold medal Hockey team.
Team USA
(Crowd cheering)
(soft piano music)
[Picabo] In the back of my mind, I'm thinking, you know,
that was-- that might've been my show.
(calm music)
- I'm with Picabo Street,
just below the women's start at the lodge,
and we're out of the public eye.
24 people going in front of you, does it change the plan at all?
- It changes it a tiny bit.
Obviously, with the warm weather, the delays,
it's bumped us back to noon today.
We've got a pretty aggressive line
we wanna run off the jump today.
And bottom line is, it's a beautiful sunny day.
It's my last day out here, so. I've been enjoying it so far,
and we'll see if I can make it another good one.
(calm music)
[Woman On Radio] You guys, the key to this course
is to attack, that's all there is to it.
Get low in the traverse up there
and come down and just attack.
The snow is nice, it's goopy.
You just got to lay it over
and believe in yourselves.
Come on. There's no tricks. So just go!
(calm music)
[Announcer] Carol Montillet, France, still the leader,
followed by Kostner of Italy, Goetschl of Austria,
and all three of those women,
know there's only one serious contender left
who can drop into that medal count.
And here she is, Picabo Street.
(Skis clacking)
(calm music)
- Go, Picabo!
(Dee whistles)
Go, Picabo! Come on, girl! Lets see it!
- Come on Peek! - All right Peek, come on!
[Coach] Good strong start now! Come on!
[Time Keeper] 10 seconds! [Teammate] Go Peek!
- Go girl! - Come on Peek!
[Teammate] Burn it up girl! Charge it! Come on! Go!
[Time Keeper] 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 (teammates cheering)
[Announcer] Pushed to display all of her success,
this is the run of her life.
- And she truly believes
that she can do it, and then she loves this course.
She feels like she owns it. She skied well on it.
She's fastest up at the top. This is where she truly excels.
Look at how wide her stance is and her tuck.
She just drops way down
and lets her skis float above the snow.
(inspiring music)
(crowd cheering)
(inspirational music)
[Announcer] Here's the first jump over shooting star,
not too bad.
2/10 back however, so that bobble up higher
has cost her time.
- It's still not too late,
there's some good turns.
She skied well down here on the bottom in training.
She needs to get back into her tuck though.
Looking a little tentative.
(inspirational music)
(crowd cheering)
(inspirational music)
(crowd cheering)
(cheering continues)
- But I have nothing but admiration
for a stellar effort by this Olympic champion who,
by all rights, shouldn't have even been a contender here.
The greatest American downhiller ever taking a final bow.
(crowd cheering)
- You won that rose, kid.
- I know. I know.
- And you'd win that rose, you know what happened.
- Yep, it's all good.
- Yeah. You had 'em for a while, man.
It's good for ya. I'm really proud of you, honey.
- Thanks Dad, thanks for everything.
- You bet.
- No more 3 AM phone calls. - Yeah!
[Announcer] So for Picabo, there's no storybook finish
for the comeback girl.
But she's leaving ski racing, having brought more attention
to her sport in the U S. than anyone before her.
- Best day I've ever had
in my ski racing career, it's all because of you, thank you.
[Announcer] Turns out, everyone's rooting for this-
- Thanks to my mom and dad.
You guys have been great throughout my whole career.
You've always supported me and you've been there
waiting for that phone call at 4 o'clock in the morning.
Now we won't have to wait anymore. I'll be home baby. Whoo!
And it's hard to explain to people
that that was rewarding for me.
They're like, "What? You got you 16th."
And I'm like, yeah, all the history,
all the water under the bridge, all of the time,
all the effort, all of the, you know, ups and downs.
It's like, there's more to it than that time at the finish.
I just hugged Lindsey Kildow. She's 17 years old,
first time in the Olympics,
getting the jitters out of her system.
And you know, my team is good. It's big and it's strong.
And I'm gonna really have a fun time living vicariously
through them and watching them.
And, hopefully, I'll be hugging them one day
after they've won a gold medal.
'Cause the feeling is great when it happens.
- It was such a great Olympics. - It was perfect, yeah.
- Yeah, it was such a great games.
Way to represent by the way.
Top finish of the U.S. at those games.
- I know, but everyone over...
Everyone was like, "Our team did so bad.
We're going to pretend like you didn't even do that."
So I got literally- - Just made you more hungry.
- 'Cause you retired, and I was, like, on the team.
- Ma, ma, mrr, mrr mrr. (Picabo laughs)
- Yeah, and I was like, no one even cares.
- They missed our baton handoff, didn't they?
- I know! They're late to the game.
- Picabo Street's retirement was among the most prominent
storylines to come out of the Winter Olympics.
- I feel so great. I feel so relieved, Judy.
It's really been incredible.
I mean, the Olympic experience has been wonderful for me.
And I've gotten to feel it
from all the different perspectives
that you can feel it from.
I knew that I was gonna need a couple of years
to find myself and figure out what I wanted
to do with my life.
I knew I wanted to pay it forward,
but in what form?
And then, what do I want for me, personally, in my life?
(electronic music)
- You're so, like, you.
And you always say what's on your mind,
and you have no filter, and that's what I love about you.
Do you ever feel like you were judged
kind of for being a rebel? - Oh, yeah. All the time.
All the time.
I think you feel it always, that people are judging you.
When you're growing up in the spotlight,
I felt judged all along.
It magnified a whole lot more about five years ago.
[Media Journalist] Picabo called the cops
after her father, who's diabetic,
became belligerent and confused
after his blood sugar dropped to a dangerous level.
- As dad was getting older, I think as time went on,
it was getting rawer and rawer
with this mismanagement of his diabetes.
And so, Peek had become a caretaker for them.
So they were living with her
and, you know, there's a lot of frustration,
especially with mom and Peek, he would get physical.
[Media Journalist] Picabo says her father attacked her
by grabbing her hair.
- Two handfuls on either side of my neck,
and I was, I started...
I put my hands on his chest and he stumbled backwards.
- She says they both fell down the stairs.
When she broke free, she called 911.
- Were you afraid your father was going to hurt you?
- Oh, I was petrified.
- She called for help
because her father was in the middle of a medical crisis.
And she ended up getting arrested
when she did not deserve to at all.
And it crushed her brand, her impact,
and a lot of her spirit.
[News Host] Former Olympian was charged
with one count of assault and three counts
of domestic violence, all of which are misdemeanors.
[Media Journalist] Both of her parents signed affidavits
supporting their daughter.
Her father wrote, "The entire episode was my fault.
And Picabo was only defending herself."
- I can look at it like I should've never called for help,
but we always called for help.
It was what we always did, call for help for Dad.
[Media Journalist] Four weeks ago,
the prosecution finally dropped all charges.
- It kicked her the curbs so fast, you know,
and all of our sponsorships went away so fast
that it devastated her.
- They should not have arrested Picabo.
[Media Journalist] Picabo's lawyer, Joe Rona,
is adamant that prosecutors and police rushed to judgment.
- They can destroy lives simply by filing a criminal charge.
- I invited her to a golf tournament.
I just thought she'd come in as Picabo,
you know, own the room.
And I made eye contact with her in the foyer,
and she wasn't coming in until I went and got her.
And that just crushed me.
- It started when I was a little girl
and got worse when he got diabetes.
And then we found out that he had early onset dementia
when we had our incident.
He doesn't remember what day it was,
what time of day it was, nothing.
He had so much remorse in the last couple of years of his life
and I showed him so much grace.
The last time I saw him, he was making potato salad
with these little teeny potatoes he loved
and I said, "I gotta go get my kids, Dad."
And he turned and said, "All right, boo. I love you."
And I said, "I love you, too."
And I walked out.
And that's the last time I saw him.
But I got the goodbye,
and I think that's God's way of being like,
"You were there always."
You know?
Because this was such a beautiful, insane,
intense relationship that engulfed everything
and was magical.
Daxy, come on, honey!
It's an honor to care for a parent.
And I care for my Mom every day.
It was an honor to care for my Dad.
It was hard and scary and I failed a lot,
but it makes such a better person out of you.
(Picabo chuckling)
[Picabo] It's fun to try to go,
you get it, like right there.
- You're good, dude.
- Come on, get in here!
Ride with me!
(gentle music)
- There's this analogy that my girlfriend said to me,
and it's, "When you become a mom,
you are instantly tethered with this sled,
and you're constantly pulling the sled
whether all of the kids are riding in it,
or none of them are riding in it.
It doesn't matter, you're still pulling it along."
It's such a warming, welcoming, like forever feeling.
(soft music playing)
It's like nothing else on the planet.
- Better than skiing? - Oh my God, yeah.
Don't worry, if you bump me,
I'll just bump Trey and he can go off the edge.
- Deal!
(soft music playing)
- What's the one thing that you wish that people knew?
Like take down the hard eggshell.
Like what's the one thing that is like,
this is me that you don't know?
- You know, I think a lot of people see me
as a lot harder and tougher than I really am.
I feel like there's two operating systems that we have.
We're either operating out of love
or we're operating out of fear.
I don't think the hate is the opposite of love.
I think fear is.
And it's like, I don't,
I don't want to be stifled by that anymore.
[Picabo] You'd go noodling where?
(man laughing)
- Down in there? - Yeah!
- You would not! - Yeah you would!
- No you wouldn't! - Yeah I would!
- Are you serious? - Easily!
- Come on! Would you? What would you wear?
There's a Cherokee proverb of like,
you have two wolves that live inside of you
and one of them is super kind and pumps you up
and makes you feel good.
And the other one's super nasty and mean and evil.
And when the little grandson asks the Cherokee grandpa,
"What wolf wins the battle?"
He says "The one you feed."
(soft music playing)
- The button? Which one?
Yeah! You got it!
- And grab this.
(soft music playing)
- You look great!
- Thank you.
(soft music playing)
- I deal with that same battle that everybody does
all day, every day.
What's the story you're telling yourself?
It's a beautiful thing to be raw and real
and human and going through it.
Not... - You taught me that.
- Not trying to hide from it
and be something you're not, right?
- Well, that's what you taught me.
Then that allowed me to do the same thing.
- Good.
Yay.
- Nuh-uh!
Linds!
- Yeah. This is in my bedroom.
Not awkward at all, I'm 36 years old.
(Picabo laughing)
- But
- That's a cool poster!
- Team Street. - Team Street!
- Yep. - Linds...
- "Follow your dreams! "I did. - Yeah, you did.
- So thank you.
- Yeah.
(instrumental music playing)
- Follow in your footsteps in that way.
Like you, you know,
inspired me and I try to inspire others
and I hope the next generation does the same.
- Pay it forward.
- But you know,
I think what you're doing with your academy is incredible.
- That's funny. It's so cool.
- What drove you to start that?
- I was lucky to be one of the early ones on the ski team
when they had a strong development program.
- Yeah.
- And we were doing school on the road and it was tough.
I struggled and I want other people to not run
into that situation and not feel unprepared.
* Later I'd watch you and wonder what it was like *
* How do you bear the full weight? *
* How does the long way feel? *
* Kneading your hand too tight against the wheel? *
* How do you stay in that tower? *
* How do you reckon your own power? *
* How does the wheel not turn hour on hour on hour? *
* I was trying to find my way *
* I was thinking my mind was made *
* But you were making my heart change shape *
* It's all that I could take *
* I was trying to find my way *