STORY AND PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK

The nation’s fastest ski racers got a lesson in ski history and Idaho potatoes as Sun Valley welcomed those taking part in the 2018 Toyota U.S. Alpine Championships this weekend.

Steve Porino gave them a condensed version of Sun Valley’s history in shaping the ski world as Kitzbuhel’s bergermeister Klaus Winkler draped softball-sized medals around their necks before handing each winner a foot-long Idaho potato.

Sun Valley’s Olympic gold and silver medalist Picabo Street couldn’t resist commenting on the gigantic potatoes.

“My coach said, ‘Picabo, you’re the most famous potato in the world,’ ” she told the athletes. “I’m so excited to see ski racing back in Sun Valley… This is a destination resort and we have arrived.”

Led by a marching band, more than a hundred alpine racers paraded past a line of clapping ski instructors clad in red Sun Valley uniform before passing under ski poles held high by ski patrollers.

Every square inch of the Ketchum Town Square was filled with spectators and athletes by the time they reached the stage.

Former World Cup racer Steve Porino, who went on to serve as analytical broadcaster for the Olympics, told the athletes that he had lived here all of 18 months.

“I came here for the National Alpine Championships in 2016 and I never felt so local,” said Porino, who decided then and there to move his family from Bend, Ore. “I hope you all will feel as local. When it gets right down to it, we’re all from somewhere away.”

Porino noted that Sun Valley was the epicenter of ski racing in the early days of skiing in America. He told how railroad magnate Averell Harriman built Sun Valley as America’s first destination ski resort after skiing in Davos, Switzerland, and deciding America needed something similar. The resort lured a pigtailed skier named Gretchen Fraser who became the first ever American to win an alpine ski medal at the Olympics (she won two—gold and silver).

“Then came this guy Warren Miller, who really changed the face of skiing, and it all started here,” he said, before enumerating others from Sun Valley who have changed the face of skiing with their goggles, ski poles and other inventions.

“Did I miss anyone of the dreamers who came here. You bet!” he said. “But when you’re up on the hill wondering how you’re going to beat Ryan Cochran-Siegle (who won gold in the first two men’s event) you’ve come to the right place.”

Austria’s Winkler noted that Sun Valley’s Chuck Ferries, a 1960 and 1964 Olympian, became the first American to win the famed Hanenkamm slalom at Kitzbuhel.

“I know not everyone gets to take home a medal and a real large potato,” added Ketchum Mayor Neil Bradshaw. “But I hope everyone of you gets to take home good memories.”