Fight TILL THE End

VERY SKIER IN Europe and North America knew Andrea Mead Lawrence in the weeks leading up to the 1952 Winter Olympics in Oslo, Norway. The 19-year-old Vermonter was the captain of the U.S. Women’s Ski Team and America’s best shot at a medal. Her portrait was on the cover of TIME magazine and graced newsstands next to the Queen of England. The story described Lawrence as “a tall girl (5-foot-7.5-inches, 130 pounds), but willowy and slim,” and went on to spotlight her diet: “She drinks a beer with her meals, and is usually ready to join a friend in a cup of Glüwein. She smokes a cigarette when she feels like it.” And her personal style: “She wears no lipstick; she has never been to a manicurist or a hairdresser.”

Lawrence cared about the critics as little as she did her hair. If anything, their remarks only gave her impetus to ski harder and faster, says her daughter, Quentin Lawrence. On opening day at the Oslo Games, Lawrence took gold in the giant slalom by 2.2 seconds. But the race everyone talks about, to this day, was the slalom. That’s because, 66 years later, Lawrence’s Olympic record still stands.

On her first run, Lawrence hooked a ski on a gate and fell. Despite the setback, she hiked to the missed gate and was in fourth place going into her second run. She wore a sweater under her race bib and wool pants. A scarf kept her hair out of her face. “When I took off for the second run, I was released as the full force and energy of who I am as a person,” Lawrence told The San Jose Mercury News in 2002.

“Your life doesn’t stop by winning medals. It’s only the beginning,” Lawrence once said. “And if you have that true Olympic spirit, you have to put it back into the world in meaningful ways.”

That day in 1952, Lawrence displayed in Lawrence’s obituary.