Alice McKennis Duran Photograph/ Meredith Guinan
Former ranch hand Alice McKennis Duran, identified in her racing days as Alice McKennis, is amongst America’s most resilient downhillers and certainly one of solely three Colorado-born alpine skiers to win a World Cup.
In 2014, across the time of the Sochi Olympics, McKennis was in Vail rehabbing from certainly one of her many profession accidents. She wandered into the Colorado Snowsports Museum and noticed an exhibit for the Vancouver Olympics. Inside was a plaque along with her title on it alongside along with her teammates from the 2010 U.S. Olympic Alpine Group. She took a photograph.
“I nonetheless have an image of it on my telephone,” she mentioned. “I believed it was so cool, so badass, seeing my title in there.”
Now her title is completely etched within the museum—and in Colorado ski historical past.
One in all America’s lowest-profile but most impactful downhill skiers, Duran joined a choose group of historic greats this September when she was inducted into the Colorado Snowsports Corridor of Fame.
From spurs to ski boots
Rising up on a ranch in Newcastle, Colo., Duran’s rise to success on skis was far totally different than most World Cup-level athletes.
“Our home was a couple of half mile from the principle barn and corrals. As a child, I bear in mind mornings, driving my bike down and being there all day, clearing the irrigation ditch, cleansing corrals, no matter else wanted to be accomplished,” says Duran, who at age 5 misplaced her mom to a automotive accident and tackled the ranch chores alongside her father, Greg, and older sister, Kendra.
“I grew up on a ranch, not in a ski group. Snowboarding was one thing my dad was enthusiastic about, however he was not a ski racer, not a ski coach. It was a setting the place it doesn’t matter what occurred, you picked your self up by your bootstraps and obtained on with the work,” she mentioned.
Discovering her manner onto snow
Within the winter, the ranch chores subsided and Greg McKennis took his daughters to the closest slopes – Daylight Mountain Resort, an independently owned ski hill about 25 miles away.
“I attribute loads of my early success to my dad,” Duran says. “He noticed that I had some expertise and put me in varied golf equipment that would help it. It reveals you don’t need to be from Vail or Aspen or an enormous, iconic ski racing group. It’s completely attainable to make it to the very best stage being from a spot like New Fortress, snowboarding at a spot like Daylight.”
Duran began racing gates with Daylight Winter Sports activities Membership, then explored racing in Vail, Aspen and Steamboat Springs whereas her father homeschooled her and her sister. She fell in love with downhill and super-G at age 13 and by 16 was scoring factors on the NorAm circuit.
“With the character of ranching, winter was a simple time to be away. We did Vail, Steamboat, Aspen, Summit County. Plenty of occasions, ski racing meant commuting from New Fortress. There was loads of time within the automotive. Nonetheless, snowboarding for my dad, my sister and I, it was a constructive outlet, one thing we latched onto after the tragedy of shedding my mother.”
Big highs and lengthy lows
Named to the U.S. Ski Group, she made her World Cup debut in 2008 and by the next 12 months scored her first prime 10 in a World Cup downhill at Lake Louise. Though she skied off-course within the 2010 Olympic downhill, Duran continued touchdown prime 15 outcomes on the World Cup downhill circuit up till the primary of many main accidents.
She broke her left leg – a horrible tibial plateau fracture – in a coaching crash in Austria that took her out for your entire 2011 season. Duran bounced again, touchdown a then-career-best eighth place in her first World Cup after harm—the Lake Louise downhill in December 2011. She struggled with consistency by most of that season, however by spring 2012, she notched one other pair of prime 10s.
Breakthrough season
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Essentially the most profitable season of her profession got here in 2013. Duran, who would tackle the nickname “The Aligator,” landed the one World Cup victory of her profession within the notoriously steep and technical St. Anton downhill—what her former U.S. ski coach Chip White described as “the Kitzbuhel of ladies’s ski racing.” In doing so, she turned certainly one of solely three alpine skiers (together with Mikaela Shiffrin and Sarah Schleper) born in Colorado to win a World Cup race.
Lower than two months later, a crash in Garmisch-Partenkirchen shattered her proper tibial plateau. Docs sidelined her for almost a 12 months, and she or he missed the 2014 Olympics. As soon as once more implementing the “bootstraps” ethos she grew up with on the ranch, Duran put her head down, did months of bodily remedy and power constructing, and charged again.
She returned to prime 12 World Cup finishes till one other crash in February 2016 shattered her elbow. She returned to the surgical procedure desk and restoration room. In 2016-17, The Aligator struggled with consistency on the World Cup however constructed some confidence in NorAm, touchdown a few wins and podiums. With one other Olympics looming in 2018, Duran surged again to kind, touchdown her first prime 15 in World Cup super-G and lacking an Olympic medal by simply 0.15 seconds within the 2018 Pyeongchang downhill.
Chutes in her honor
“In the event you have a look at that accomplishment, it was like one tenth of a second distinction between fifth and third. We have been blown away after we watched. She claimed Daylight as her house mountain. She might have claimed Aspen or Vail,” mentioned Troy Hawks, previously of Daylight Mountain, who, together with letters from Daylight’s former Normal Supervisor Tom Jankovsky and former U.S. Group President Invoice Marolt, nominated Duran for the Colorado Snowsports Corridor of Fame.
Following her 2018 Olympic efficiency, Daylight named three steep, gladed chutes—a few of Duran’s favourite childhood strains—“Aligator Alleys” in her honor.
“She made it again to the ski space that March to be with our ski racing children,” Hawks mentioned. “That was big, to see this U.S. Ski Group jacket zipping round Daylight. She had a posse of like 30 or extra children, plus a bunch of 60-year-old males chasing her across the mountain.”
The final crash
By the tip of that 2018 season, Duran was again on the World Cup podium. She took third on the World Cup Finals downhill in Åre, Sweden, sharing the rostrum with winner and teammate Lindsey Vonn.
That rise to glory was adopted by a painful plunge. She broke her left leg in Could 2018, requiring 5 surgical procedures over a number of months. Nonetheless, she returned to the gates greater than a 12 months later in December 2019, saying on the time that she felt sturdy and like she was snowboarding higher than she ever had.
She threw down a tenth in downhill and thirteenth in super-G back-to-back on the Lake Louise World Cups and proceeded to construct again to constant velocity earlier than the world shut down in March 2020.
Remaining comeback and retirement
The subsequent season, a crash in Val d’Isere that induced a damaged ankle and torn knee ligaments was the final setback Duran wished to endure. She introduced her retirement in spring 2021 at age 31.
Grit and recognition
Though her racing profession was riddled with accidents and at the very least 13 surgical procedures—greater than nearly any U.S. alpine skier in historical past—her resilience gave her work ethic even higher depth and respect.
“Her journey is unbelievable,” Hawks mentioned. “It actually defines the grit and willpower of rural America. All of the surgical procedures she went by and got here again from, she caught with it. She’s robust as nails, however so soft-spoken and modest. Her grit and willpower, she’s an ideal consultant for the Corridor of Fame.”
A lesson in willpower
Duran expressed her appreciation for becoming a member of such ranks throughout her induction speech at Beaver Creek this September.
“Reflecting on my ski racing profession, I’m crammed with a lot gratitude,” she mentioned. “It was by no means straightforward, nevertheless it was largely loads of enjoyable. I had many challenges, unbelievable highs, and simply numerous reminiscences I’m going to take with me without end.”
Following retirement, Duran coached for Ski and Snowboard Membership Vail and not too long ago took a training job with the U.S. Growth Group. She and her husband, Pat Duran, had a child—Darby Duran—a 12 months and a half in the past, and reside in Minturn. She says that teaching has given her a contemporary perspective on the game.
“It’s good to share your data and have an effect on athletes,” she says. “It’s rewarding another way as a coach. You’re seeing them succeed, seeing them determine it out. It’s cool to see a few of these younger folks see the eagerness they’ve for it. You by no means know the place it leads. I feel again to once I was their age, going by these steps.”
Wanting again
In her acceptance speech, Duran mentioned that teaching has additionally widened her reflective lens on her personal profession.
“Again then, the main target was so fixed and the urgency was relentless,” she mentioned. “It was so intense, it by no means felt like I used to be attaining sufficient or pushing myself quick sufficient. However now I see how extraordinary it was. I can say it was unbelievable, and I used to be unbelievable. I see how razor skinny the margin is to make it to the highest and make it to the place I used to be, and the way grueling that path will be. It leaves me pondering, how on Earth did I do this?”
She did. And now she has the Corridor of Fame standing to show it.
