America’s original skiing hero was finally defeated. Andrea Mead Lawrence succumbed to cancer at home in Mammoth Lakes, Calif., in the presence of her five children, shortly before midnight March 30. She was 76.
America’s original skiing hero was finally defeated. Andrea Mead Lawrence succumbed to cancer at home in Mammoth Lakes, Calif., in the presence of her five children, shortly before midnight March 30. She was 76.

A two-time Olympic gold medallist, the only one in U.S. skiing history, she was a cover girl for Time Magazine after claiming both the slalom and GS in the 1952 Olympics at Oslo, Norway.

She was raised in Vermont skied at the family owned Pico ski resort outside of Rutland. She completed in three Olympics, the first in 1948 at the age of 15, created history in ’52 and stopped competing after the ’56 Games.

She held the U.S. national championship record of 10 wins strung between 1949 and 1955, a mark ironically matched the day she died by Julia Mancuso.

She settled in Mammoth Lakes and became active in political and environmental causes, being elected to the Mono County Supervisory Board, a position she held for 16 years. She founded the Andrea Mead Lawrence Institute for Mountains and Rivers. She fought against slope-side development.

Lawrence was first diagnosed with brain cancer in 2000, underwent surgery and recovered adequately enough to help carry the Olympic torch at the 2002 Salt Lake City Games. She was the first person inducted into the Vermont Ski Museum’s Hall of Fame later that year and was granted an honorary degree from Green Mountain College in 2005.

Last fall doctors learned the cancer had spread to her lungs and she decided against receiving toxic treatments.