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Picabo Street (1971)close

Born in Triumph, Idaho, this two-time Olympic medalist skier with the unconventional name came from an unconventional family. In fact, her parents believed that a child should be able to choose her own name, so for the first two years of her life, they called her "Little Girl." It was only when her parents tried to get a passport for her to travel to Mexico when she was two that US officials insisted that they give her a "real name." They chose "Picabo" after a village in Idaho (the word means "Shining Water" in a Native American language), but told Picabo she could change her name if she wanted to... she decided to keep it. When Picabo was 16, she won the National Junior Alpine Ski Championship and in 1994, she won a silver medal in downhill skiing at the Winter Olympics in Norway. Four years later, she won a gold medal at the Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan, just months after a severe knee injury in a ski accident.

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