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This Day In Sports…February 25, 2010, 15 years ago today:
Boise’s Jeret “Speedy” Peterson flies 50 feet in the air and lands his famed Hurricane jump to win a silver medal in the men’s aerials at the 2010 Winter Olympics. Peterson had been a longshot after the first round, sitting in fifth place, but he brought the house down with his legendary second jump. “This is the best day of my life,” he told KTVB after the competition. Peterson, who grew up skiing at Bogus Basin, had a resume that belied his journey. The third-time Olympian had four World Cup victories through 2006 and won the 2005 World Cup season title in men’s aerials. But he had been off the international radar for three years.
Peterson had missed landing the Hurricane at the Torino Olympics four years earlier, finishing seventh. He was then sent home by the U.S. team after a drunken fight with a close friend. Peterson’s life took many difficult turns after that, leading to a hiatus from competitive skiing. But Speedy quit drinking, returned to the World Cup circuit, and qualified for the U.S. squad at the Vancouver Games. Then, with five twists and three flips, he stuck a jump with the highest degree of difficulty in Olympic aerials history.
It’s a difficult story to tell here in what is normally an upbeat feature. Peterson had openly spoken about his battle with alcohol and depression through the years. His mother had told him about being sexually abused as an infant, and protecting sexually-abused children became a cause he would champion until the end. His sister, Kim, was killed by a drunk driver in 1987. And in 2005, he witnessed the suicide of a childhood friend. After the 2010 Winter Games, alcohol found him again.
Peterson’s story would end tragically exactly 17 months after his silver medal when he took his own life in a remote Utah canyon a few days after being arrested for DUI near Hailey. His cousin, Shannon Decker, created the “Speedy Foundation” later that year to magnify Peterson’s mental struggles and provide resources to address suicide prevention. Its first achievement was the reinstatement of the Idaho Suicide Prevention Hotline in 2012. The foundation now hosts events throughout the West—more information is available at TheSpeedyFoundation.org.
(Tom Scott hosts the Scott Slant segment during the football season on KTVB’s Sunday Sports Extra. He also anchors four sports segments each weekday on 95.3 FM KTIK and one on News/Talk KBOI. His Scott Slant column runs every Wednesday.)
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