Turin, Italy 2006 Winter Olympic Games

Highlights
Alaskan Rosey Fletcher grew up skiing at local mountain Alyeska, but made the switch to snowboarding at 15. A parallel slalom specialist, Fletcher has two World Championships silvers in the discipline and barely missed another medal at the '03 Worlds with fourth place finish. Fletcher writes a column for her local paper The Turnagain Times while traveling.

Update
2006 is Olympics No. 3 for Rosey. Her summer schedule was tough – from a May training camp at Mammoth, she zipped over to Copper for another 10 days in June to suck the last breath of life out of winter before working the dry land.

Start-up
Skiing by the age of 3, Rosey fiddled with cross country but enjoyed alpine's GS and super G the most. She tried snowboarding at 15, using a snowboard owned by a friend who was racing at alpine skiing's Junior Olympics. She moved to Vail, CO, after high school to train fulltime, competed in her first nationals in '93 and turned pro.

Injuries
Although usually a very healthy athlete, Rosey was bombarded with injuries and illness in '03 as she was forced to endure a torn MCL, torn ankle and viral meningitis. She's now back at 100 percent and hoping all that bad stuff is behind her.

Personal
You can take Fletcher out of Alaska, but you can't take Alaska out of Fletcher. Her personal website has its own section devoted to the state known for its 20 hours of sunshine (during the summer, anyway). To show that her talents extend off snow, Rosey documents her travels as a columnist for her local newspaper. Her sister Beth has become a first-rate halfpipe skier after starting in the pipe as a snowboarder. Beth, Rosey and third-sister Kate all got tattoos at the same time as a sister bonding experience years ago.