Alice McKennis Duran named to Colorado Snowsports Museum Hall of Fame Class of 2025

When Alice and Kendra McKennis were young ski racers, you could take the sisters out of New Castle, but no one could take the New Castle out of them.

“We were kind of like the Beverly Hillbillies rolling into these ski towns every winter,” Alice — now McKennis Duran — said with a laugh as she fondly recalled junior club days spent in Vail, Steamboat Springs and Summit County. “New Castle is not a town of ski racers.”

But McKennis Duran’s unique upbringing didn’t stop her from achieving her dreams. In fact, it might have been the secret to her success.

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It was announced Tuesday that the two-time Olympian will be inducted into the Colorado Snowsports Museum Hall of Fame in Vail. The speed star joins Wendy Fisher, Jon Kreamelmeyer, Bob Meserve and Trace Worthington in the 2025 class. The annual induction ceremony is September 27, 2025, at the Vilar Performing Arts Center.

“I’m extremely grateful for my career. The lows were really low, but it shaped a lot of who I am and I feel like I’m a pretty resilient person because of that,” McKennis Duran said, reflecting upon her 12 years on the World Cup. “No doubt, I wish I had achieved some of my greater dreams and goals, but that just wasn’t my story.”

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McKennis Duran’s ski story started at Sunlight Ski Resort. After his wife passed away when Alice was just 5, Greg McKennis raised his two daughters in the nurture and admonition of Alpine racing. Although he was never a high-level ski racer himself, McKennis Duran said her dad — who still logs 100-plus days a season at 72 — has always been passionate about the sport.

“My dad was really influential in both of our ski racing careers,” she said.

As the siblings progressed, they bounced around to various clubs across Colorado in search of the best coaching and competitive environment. The family rented cheap condos. The kids were homeschooled by their dad or various tutors. During the summers, the sisters worked on the New Castle ranch, riding horses from dawn to dusk. On the slopes, Alice McKennis Duran immediately gravitated towards speed events, falling in love with super-G and downhill as a 13-year-old.

“To have the freedom to just go as fast as you can — why would you not want to do that?” she explained. The teen was good, too. In 2005, the 16-year-old finished second at junior nationals in the super-G. The following year, she posted five top-20 NorAm Cup finishes. By 2008, McKennis Duran had made the U.S. Ski Team, fulfilling a dream she’d held onto since she was a little girl.

“But you obviously have no idea what it really means,” she said of her childhood aspirations. “I think as I got a little bit older — 16, 17, 18 — is when I sort of started to think this is a viable possibility; that I can achieve a lot of this stuff. But a lot of things have to fall into place for it to happen and a lot of hard work had to go into it as well.”

The 19-year-old finished 51st in her World Cup debut at Lake Louise on Dec. 5, 2008, after being invited to the event the week prior.

“I still remember getting the phone call from my coach at that time,” she said. “I was just so excited and overjoyed to have that opportunity.”

In terms of the actual racing, McKennis Duran admitted feeling “completely out of my element.”

“You’re racing against your idols and Olympic champions and all of these great ski racers and you’ve barely even started your career at that point,” she said. “So it was eye-opening to say the least.”

One of those idols took the win that day: Lindsey Vonn. McKennis Duran said she felt “very fortunate” to have her career run parallel with the 82-time World Cup winner.

“It was mind-blowing to be around her at a lot of these incredible records she broke and things she did and to just share in that,” she added. “It’s no doubt inspiring to see what she’s doing now.”

McKennis Duran said training with Vonn, Julia Mancuso and other Team USA trailblazers who characterized that era had an empowering effect on her perspective.

“It allowed me to see that as a U.S. racer, you can be great,” she said. “It’s not just the Europeans.”

McKennis Duran, like many Americans, took advantage of her years scouting the Lake Louise course as a NorAm Cup athlete. Three of her nine World Cup top-10s came on the Canadian course.

“That was a great venue for me,” she said.

So was St. Anton.

On Jan. 12, 2013, McKennis Duran overcame challenging conditions to claim what would be her only World Cup win. As the fourth athlete to blast out of the start gate onto the shortened course, she had the pleasure of patiently waiting in the leader’s chair as her win slowly solidified.

“You get through the top-30 and you start to believe it might happen, but you’re not going to count on this until the race is over,” she said. “To have a victory in the heart of ski racing was very, very memorable.”

While Vonn and Mancuso were regular World Cup winners, McKennis Duran credited the recent performances of her teammates Stacy Cook and Leann Smith — both of whom notched podiums in the weeks leading up to the St. Anton event — as catalyzing her own bourgeoning internal belief.

“It was seeing that other group within my team have great success that really gave me the confidence to push,” she said.

McKennis Duran represented Team USA at the Vancouver Olympics in 2010, but injuries kept her out of the Sochi cycle. She suffered a left tibial plateau fracture in 2011 and shattered her right tibial plateau in 2013. The year before the PyeongChang Olympics, McKennis Duran finished 33rd in the downhill cup standings, well off her 10th from 2013.

“I hadn’t made the U.S. Ski Team criteria and I thought, ‘Maybe this is it,'” she said. “But I was able to turn it around.”

McKennis Duran shocked herself with a fifth-place result in the 2018 Olympic downhill. A month later, she claimed her second-career podium at the World Cup Finals in Are, Sweden.

“I’d had so many injuries and a lot of setbacks between 2010 and 2018 — and some high moments as well — but to make it back in 2018 and have my best result in five years was pretty special,” she said.

Going into her 30s, McKennis Duran planned to race through the 2022 Olympics. Before the pandemic, she’d strung together three-straight top-30s, including a 16th in Crans Montana, Switzerland, on Feb. 22. Shortly after the World Cup circuit returned, McKennis Duran posted the top training run time at the Val d’Isere downhill on Dec. 16. Two days later, however, she crashed out of the race.

“I sort of had this feeling as I limped across the finish line, like, ‘I think this is it,'” she said. “I don’t want to say I decided in that moment, but I was just at a place in my life and career where I didn’t want to continue living through these crashes and injuries.”

After taking a few months to process everything, she officially retired.

“It wasn’t the ending I visualized, but truthfully, I would confidently say no one walks away from ski racing the way they envisioned,” she said. “It’s just a type of sport where the chips don’t always fall where you want them to fall and you just have to find a way to accept whatever it is and embrace all the good things that happened to you because of the sport.”

Stepping away from competition has made the 35-year-old more abundantly aware of the influence her family and coaches had on her career. As a young junior, she was grateful for SSCV’s Anje Worrell, whose presence as a female coach was rare at the time. She also acknowledged longtime U.S. women’s speed coach, Chip White, for having faith in her talent, even during the low points.

“You never forget the people who believe in you no matter what,” McKennis Duran said. “He was one of those people that, even when I had some real down periods, really believed that I could still be great. You need that sometimes.”

These days, McKennis Duran lives with her husband, Pat, a Ski and Snowboard Vail coach, in Minturn. She coached at SSCV for a couple of years after retiring, but said her main priority at the moment is raising her 1 1/2-year-old son. She’s been helping out with the U.S. Ski Team’s development programming on the side and also hopped in the commentary booth this spring at the World Cup Finals in Sun Valley and the U.S. Alpine National Championships in Vail.

When asked what she thinks her legacy in the ski world will ultimately be, McKennis Duran pointed back to her upbringing — horses and all.

“Coming from a ranch, I think just showing that you don’t have to be a big ski town person to succeed,” she said. “You just have to have some real grit and resilience and the ability to work hard. And the ability to think differently and figure things out. Maybe your path slightly deviates from the norm, but it’s all possible no matter what your background is.”