SUN VALLEY, Idaho — While Team Idaho competes for gold in the Summer Olympics on the other side of the world, a Sun Valley native was honored for winning gold during the Winter Olympics.
Kaitlyn Farrington took home a gold medal from the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia by winning the women’s halfpipe competition.
Before she was an Olympic gold medalist, Farrington grew up near Bellevue and trained in Sun Valley with the Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation.
Andy Gilbert, the Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation Snowboard program director, was one of Farrington's coaches in high school.
"It just excitement about winter sports and this culture up here - and what a kid from Bellevue, Idaho can do," Gilbert said. "I felt like it put us on equal footing. I feel like it recognizes the discipline, it recognizes how hard it is to do what these athletes do. And for the local snowboard community, it's really special."
The hometown hero is now forever enshrined next to three other Winter Olympic and Paralympic legends from Sun Valley at Festival Meadows.
"There's a whole collection of these women who have really broken the glass ceiling," Sun Valley Ski Education Executive Director Scott McGrew said. "Not just for females in sport - but females in sport from Idaho and from this particular community."
The bronze sculpture was created by Ben Victor, and is part of a project started nine years ago to honor the community's past Olympians while providing inspiration for the region's future athletes.
"Having this here and having Kaitlyn do what she did makes this tangible for the kids in this valley," Gilbert said. "We pass this trophy every single day on our way to go train at Dollar Mountain. So it's it's a powerful image, and we're super excited to have this here."
Since snowboarding was added to the Olympics in 1998, every Team USA snowboarding squad has had an athlete from Sun Valley.