Skiing
b. Jan. 4, 1951, Claremont, NH
The Cochrans were America's first family of skiing during the 1970s, and Barbara was probably the best of them. At one time all four Cochran children--Barbara, Linda, Marilyn and Bob--were on the U. S. national ski team and their father, Mickey, was the coach.
Perhaps the most important thing Barbara learned from her father was how to save one/tenth of a second by getting the body moving forward in the starting gate before pushing open the mechanism that starts the timer, because that secret won her a gold medal. In the 1972 Olympic slalom, Barbara won in 1:31.24 to a time of 1:31.26 for Danielle Debernard of France. That race was run over a very difficult course at Sapporo, Japan; of the forty-two entrants, only nineteen completed both runs.
Barbara won two national championships, in the 1969 giant slalom and the 1971 slalom. She was second in the slalom in the 1970 world championships. After retiring from competition and graduating from the University of Vermont, she became a writer for the Washington Post and wrote a book, Skiing for Women.
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