Davis helps carry
torch in to Salt Lake
Paralympian races
in mid-March
By GREG
STAHL
Express Staff Writer
For a few
minutes last week, Sun Valley native and Paralympian Muffy Davis was the
only person in the world carrying the Olympic torch closer to its final
destination in Salt Lake City.
Sun
Valley native and Paralympian Muffy Davis chats Monday with Idaho Gov.
Dirk Kempthorne during the first of two "Idaho Days" at the
Western States Discovery Center in downtown Salt Lake City. Express
photo by Greg Stahl
Being a
torch bearer was "a huge honor," said Davis, who was asked
personally by Salt Lake Organizing Committee President Mit Romney.
"The
thing that hit me the most—they told us that at that moment that you’re
carrying the flame, you’re the only person in the whole world bringing
it to Salt Lake City. The Olympics are waiting for you," she said.
Davis, who
has lived in Park City for the past two years to train for her second
Paralympic bid, was one of famed downhiller Picabo Street’s childhood
rivals. The two girls used to push each other as they raced down Sun
Valley’s Bald Mountain.
"We
were going to go to the Olympics together. We were going to wow the
world," said Street, who also was honored to carry the Olympic torch
on its final leg in Salt Lake City.
Street and
gold medal hockey player Cammi Granato carried the torch at the conclusion
of the opening ceremonies and passed it to the 1980 gold medal USA Hockey
Team that lit the Olympic cauldron.
By the time
Davis was 16, both girls were ranked nationally, and some coaches said
Davis had an edge. Whatever edge she might have had evaporated in 1989
when she caught an edge and slammed into one tree, then another.
She broke
the T-6 vertebra in her back and shattered the helmet she’d borrowed
from Street.
When she
regained consciousness, she was paralyzed.
At first
Davis tried to forget skiing, but when she saw Street win Olympic silver
in Lillehammer, Norway, she knew she had to give ski racing another shot.
At the 1998
games in Nagano, Davis was again hot on Street’s ski tails, meddling in
the Paralympics on the same slope that Street had won Olympic gold a few
weeks before. And she hasn’t let up since.
Street
placed 16th in the downhill Tuesday at Snowbasin in what she has said will
be her final Olympic race.
Davis will
race again March 8, 11, 14 and 16 at the Paralympics at Snowbasin.
And she
still has kind words for her home state.
"Idaho
will always be home. I really feel a strong Idaho presence," she
said. "All the athletes do. Thank you very much."