Professional speed skier Ross Anderson holds some of the trophies he won during the 2000-01 winter season. As an indigenous athlete and person of color, Anderson was a trailblazer in professional skiing.Professional speed skier Ross Anderson holds some of the trophies he won during the 2000-01 winter season. As an indigenous athlete and person of color, Anderson was a trailblazer in professional skiing.
His induction into the US Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame makes him the first outwardly presenting Native American to receive that honor. "I had rhythm," he said."I wasn't afraid to make a line that goes vertical all the way down the mountain, and I lived to go fast." It wasn't until high school that Anderson began to learn about indigenous culture. He also learned how to transform his sense of anger and alienation into a competitive edge. In his late teens, Anderson had a vision of himself breaking racial barriers as a World Cup ski racer.
In 2006, at a race in the French Alps, he clocked 154.06 miles per hour, a record no American has broken.It's hard to imagine going 150 miles an hour on skis, and the few video clips of Ross Anderson online don't help much. But a few videos offer a sense of what it's like to be next to a racecourse when a speed skier goes rocketing past, likeStanding next to a speed skiing course,"the wind sounds so intense, like a jet," Anderson said.
"I viscerally remember seeing his headdress and the feathers on his helmet," recalled Callan Chythlook-Sifsof, a Yupik and Inupiaq snowboarder who competed in World Cup snowboarding for a decade and represented the US in the 2010 Winter Olympics.
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