STORY AND PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK

Sun Valley’s Muffy Davis already has a fistful of softball-sized Paralympic medals made of gold, silver and bronze.

Now, she has a larger-than-life bronze statue of herself to go with her medal collection.

Sculptor Benjamin Victor pulled back the covers on the third sculpture in Our Olympic Ladies Monument at Sun Valley’s Festival Meadows Wednesday night as more than a hundred people looked on. The sculpture features Muffy Davis skiing down an 8- to 10-ton sandstone rock that Carl Rixon brought to Sun Valley from Boise.

The detail is exquisite down to the American flag draping over Davis’s legs, her ski helmet and goggles, her armor-like ski gloves, the coiled suspension on her mono-ski and the outriggers she holds in her hands to steer her ski.

“Welcome, Muffy Davis, to Champions Row,” said Sun Valley Mayor Peter Hendricks.

The sculpture—part of a project envisioned by Brian Barsotti--takes its place alongside a bronze sculpture of Gretchen Fraser, the first American to medal in alpine skiing at the Winter Olympics when she won gold and silver in 1948 at St. Moritz. It also joins a statue of Christin Cooper, who medaled at the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo.

Cooper was present at Wednesday’s unveiling, along with fellow Olympian Picabo Street. Street, Olympic snowboarder Kaitlyn Farrington and Olympic alpine ski racer Susie Corrock will be honored with their own statues at a later date.

Cooper told onlookers that the statues represent belief and possibility.

“I threaded the needle--you have to be lucky, work hard and have the right coaches to make it as far as I did,” said Cooper. “Our job is to make kids proud of what they can do on skis... and that includes building character and becoming good people who give back.”

“Maybe we’ll have some guys up here someday,” quipped Picabo Street, who won a fistful of Olympic and World Championship medals in downhill and Super G. “This is an unbelievably amazing idea. Brilliant. Such a lasting legacy. Its inspiration will perpetuate for generations and generations and, when it’s complete, it will be the largest, female sports monument in the world.”

Benjamin Victor, a Boise sculptor who is the only living artist to have four works in the National Statuary Hall in the U.S. Capitol, described how both Christon Cooper and Muffy Davis sat down with him to make sure every detail of their sculpture was accurate, down to the brake on the bindings of Muffy Davis’s ski.  He has already made the maquette for Katilyn Farrington, who won gold in snowboarding at the 2014 Sochi Olympics.

“It’s my honor to honor these athletes,” he said. “Each has reached the pinnacle of their sport. And, yet each is down to earth. They treat you as a friend.”

Sun Valley Mayor Peter Hendricks called Davis’s sculpture “a rocket on a rock” that exudes dedication and determination as seen in her forward lean. This is Muffy Davis,” he said, adding how even as a legislator and commissioner “she squeezes everything you care about in a not long enough day.”

“As a legislator, she had a single- minded purpose to achieve all she could for her constituents,” he added. “This is not only a sculpture garden celebrating our community and our wonderful athletes. If it influences one person to push forward, if it influences one person to not give up or surrender, if it influences one person to think, ‘I can do this,’ we have accomplished a lot.”

Muffy Davis, who was paralyzed in a ski training accident at 16, described the value of community in nourishing young athletes like herself. Gretchen Fraser, for instance, had mentored her, inviting her over for tea and then cheering her on after she had her accident.

”I never imagined I was going to be in bronze,” she said, as she related how she hoped her sculpture and the others would inspire young athletes.

Davis noted that the monument is the cornerstone of the Idaho Women’s Athletic Foundation organized to inspire and empower young girls to become Idaho’s future female athletes and leaders. The Foundation also organizes athlete speaking tours, scholarships and grants for training and competition to enhance opportunities for girls and women in sports.

“While I was in the legislature,” she said, “I learned that not all communities grant girls equal opportunities compared with boys. Some girls’ teams don’t even get uniforms.”

As onlookers milled around the sculpture, Davis’s daughter Elle Burley marveled: “It’s amazing. How do they do that? It looks exactly like her.”

 Picabo’s son 12-year-old Roen Street snapped pictures of the new sculpture and dreamed of what his mother’s sculpture will look like.

“I’ve seen videos of her Olympic downhills. It’s scary because she’s going so fast. I would sculpt her with her ponytail coming down from underneath her Tiger helmet….

“It has to feature my downhill tuck,” Picabo chimed in. “That’s the pose most people remember.”

Sun Valley Council President Jane Conard, who acted as the City of Sun Valley’s liaison in in bringing the sculpture to fruition, said that Sun Valley’s City Council is still mulling plans that would set the sculptures in a more attractive setting—perhaps, along a winding path with shrubbery in between the sculptures.

“We don’t have plans in ink, but we are going forward,” she said. “We will definitely have a restroom nearby—it’s a long walk from the lodge to Ketchum for little ones without a restroom. And I want to ensure that the path will be accessible, especially for those who might have impaired mobility.”