STORY AND PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK

You can feel the dogged determination embedded in the bronze statue of the skier catching air off a bronze rock. And tucked away at the base of the new statue of Picabo Street is her favorite scripture.

“It’s Zechariah 4:6,” said Street. “Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord Almighty.”

Sun Valley’s Olympic medalist Picabo Street, whose boisterous personality turned Americans onto ski racing, teared up as young skiers from the Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation pulled away the wraps on the statue and she got to see it for the first time.

The new bronze statue features Picabo Street, her pigtails flying behind her as she catches air off a jump. Her ski bib says “Coca Cola” as the soft drink company chipped in to help pay for the statue.

Hundreds of people turned out for the unveiling Monday morning as Street’s statue joined four other statues in a monument called “Our Olympic Ladies.”

“This is about paying it forward, making a difference for the next generation,” Street told the crowd. “Please do what you can to help the next generation follow their dreams. “

Street recalled chasing her older brother and father around Baldy, trying to keep up with them at first and then trying to figure out how to be faster than them. She made it clear that the statue is not to be worshipped.

“I worship a guy that lives up in the sky. This (statue) is not about worship. It’s about inspiring a future and what can happen when want people to come and say I want a statue in that field.

Picabo Street said the statue “helps me to remember who I am and what I did.”

Muffy Davis, who grew up competing with Street until a ski accident at age 16 left her paralyzed, said that Street displayed elements of leadership off the ski course, as well as on. Davis recalled how she was attending a Paralympic training camp for challenged athletes at Vail, Colo., when Street injured her knee while racing there.

When she rolled into Picabo’s hospital room, Street immediately asked what she could do to help Davis, even though it was Street who had just been injured.

“I said, ‘Do you have a speed suit you can loan me?’ and she said ‘Done!’ ” Davis recounted. “Speed suits cost $700 each and U.S. Ski team members are given four each. But, since I wasn’t on the team at that time, I didn’t have one,” Davis said.

Susie Corrock Luby, who trained in Sun Valley and medaled in downhill at the Winter Olympics in Sapporo, Japan, said she hopes to come back in 20 years and see Champions Meadow rimmed with statues. “It’s generational,” she added, looking at the statues lined up along Sun Valley Road.

Susie Corrock Luby, who trained in Sun Valley, had 16 top ten finishes in World Cup competition—eight in downhill, two in giant slalom and six in slalom. She medaled in downhill at the 1972 Winter Olympics in Sapporo, Japan.

In fact, there has been talk among some that the monument needs to be expanded to include Sun Valley’s numerous other Olympics, including Dick Fosbury, the track star who invented the Fosbury Flop; hockey star Hilary Knight and figure skaters, such as Judy Blumberg.

Christin Cooper, who grew up in Sun Valley and medaled in the 1984 Sarajevo Olympics, said she is now counseling Street on her next endeavor, as Street is set to take Cooper’s old job as a commentator for NBC during the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan-Cortina.

“She’s doing a fabulous job providing color for the World Cup here in Sun Valley with no training, no coaching. But it’s a craft that requires work!” she said. “I’ve told her she needs to train in the months leading up to the Olympics.”

Cooper recalled how those who went before her served as her inspiration: “I won the first Susie Corrock trophy here in Ketchum when I was 13. And, when I got home, from the World Cup, (1948 Olympic medalist) Gretchen and Don Fraser would invite me to tea and talk about how things were in Europe. They cared.”

Olympic medalist Christin Cooper told how she used to babysit Picabo Street at her home in Triumph, which meant keeping the woodstove filled with wood and the teapot on.

Ketchum developer Brian Barsotti had the vision for the statues about 10 years ago, entrusting the project to Boise sculptor Benjamin Victor, who has created several sculptures now sitting in the National Statuary Hall, including Paiute activist Sarah Winnemucca and Native American rights leader Chief Standing Bear.

He first cast Gretchen Fraser, the first American alpine skier to medal at a Winter Olympics. Her sculpture was followed by that of Christin Cooper; Muffy Davis, who has medaled in multiple Winter and Summer Paralympics, and Kaitlyn Farrington, who won gold in snowboard halfpipe at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.

Victor said he had to talk Street into having a statue made: “What sold Picabo was the idea that girls could see and be inspired by this.”

Barsotti says he plans to commission one for Susie Corrock Luby, as soon as he can raise the $180,000 it takes for each statue.

In addition to unveiling the statue, Sun Valley Mayor Peter Hendricks unveiled a new signboard  renaming Festival Meadow “Champions Meadow.”

“Welcome to Sun Valley and the Wild West, and welcome to–and this is the last time I will say this—Festival Meadows,” Hendricks said as he addressed the crowd, which included a fair number of European visitors. “It’s been known by a number of names, including ‘five-acre pasture’ and ‘that hay field over there.’ We’re renaming it with good cause and good reason as it’s become a testament to the legacy of champions.”

It is a tribute to the champions who have inspired us with their sacrifice, incredible determination and true grit, Hendricks said, and it’s a place where future generations will come to believe in the impossible.

“If one person walks through these meadows and is inspired to do better, try harder, this meadow will forever echo with the spirit of greatness.”