Bretton Woods Mountain Resort has been host to a Ski Museum exhibit in recent years. Located in the ground floor of the Bretton Woods base lodge, the exhibit usually consists of about fifty photographs and text drawn from the annual exhibits seen at the Ski Museum. A single chair from the 1940 Mount Mansfield chair lift, once the world’s longest, is also on display here. The current exhibit is Five Rings, Six States: New England Skiers in the Winter Olympics, that profiles the contributions of many Winter Olympians from the region in every Olympiad from 1924 through the recent Vancouver Games.

More than 140 New Englanders have represented the US in the Winter Olympics in skiing and snowboarding since winter events were first held in Chamonix, France in 1924.  New England skiers, defined for the purpose of the exhibition as those who were either born, raised, schooled or settled in the region, have participated in every Winter Olympics. The US team gave a notable performance, mostly forgotten today, at the 1952 Games in Oslo, Norway. There, Andrea Mead Lawrence of Rutland, VT won gold medals in slalom and giant slalom, Imogene Opton of North Conway, NH was fifth in slalom, Bill Beck of Kingston, RI took fifth in downhill, and Brooks Dodge of Jackson, NH was sixth in giant slalom.

  In a later double-medal performance in 1960 at Squaw Valley, CA, Penny Pitou of Gilford, NH won silver in downhill and giant slalom. The Museum will honor Penny Pitou with its Spirit of Skiing award this coming November at its annual meeting.

 Most recently, with the important exception of Bode Miller, New Englanders have found the most Olympic success in freestyle and snowboard events rather than alpine skiing. Freestylers Nikki Stone and Hannah Kearney both won gold, Stone in 1998 and Kearney in 2010, while Ross Powers, Kelly Clark, Hannah Teter and Seth Wescott have all won gold in various snowboard events.