For the week of March 27 - April 2, 2002

Southern Comfort ski run renamed Muffy’s Medals

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By GREG STAHL
Express Staff Writer

Paralympian Muffy Davis is joining the ranks of Olympic skiers Gretchen Frasier, Christin Cooper and former training partner Picabo Street. Southern Comfort ski run on Seattle Ridge is to be named Muffy’s Medals April 4 in honor of the three silver medals she brought home from the 2002 Paralympics in Salt Lake City.

Muffy Davis

The run dedication is slated for the River Run base of Baldy at 4 p.m. Gov. Dirk Kempthorne and Sun Valley Co. owner Earl Holding may attend.

The 29-year-old mono-skier was asked to select which run would be named in her honor, reported the Twin Falls Times News on March 24. The one she chose lies between Gretchen’s Gold and Christin’s Silver.

Frasier was the first American woman to win an alpine ski medal. Cooper won a silver medal at the 1984 Olympics in Sarajevo.

"I was so excited I cried in the bathtub after Mr. Holding told me," Davis told an Associated Press reporter. "I’ve had that goal of having a run named in my honor since I was a kid.

"I love the pitch of that run. I love to fly down it. In fact, I’ve gone so fast the ski patrol has had to tell me to slow down. And it’s a great family area. Maybe parents can tell the kids about how the runs got named, and it’ll start those kids dreaming about winning their own Olympic medals."

In February 1989, the 16-year-old Davis was training downhill on Bald Mountain when she went off course at about 55 mph. She hit two trees and broker her T-6 vertebra and was instantly paralyzed.

That didn’t keep her down.

She went on to graduate from Wood River High School as Valedictorian with a 3.9 GPA and, in 1995, from Stanford University with a degree in human biology, with an emphasis on psycho-social aspects of disability, and a 3.5 GPA.

And her post-injury success didn’t end in the classroom.

This winter’s silver medals in downhill, super-G and giant slalom at Snow Basin are just the most recent in a long list of ski racing accolades.

The silvers capped a phenomenal year for Davis, who also won the overall disabled World Cup championship for the second year in a row.

She won bronze in the 1998 Parlympics in Nagano, Japan.

She also shared the honor of lighting the Paralympic cauldron before 50,000 people in Rice-Eccles stadium where the 2002 Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony was held.

"It was six months after 9-11 and all I could think about was how fortunate I was to be in the position I was and able to represent my country," she said.

 

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