15 years after Canada's Nancy Greene, Tamara McKinney, a member of the very strong US Ski Team became the only other North-American to win the women's Overall World Cup title. At the end of the tough 1982/83 season, she was able to defeat two former winners, Hanny Wenzel and Erika Hess. "Tam", began racing on the World Cup tour in 1977, was only 16 when she scored her first top-3 result in 1978 in a slalom at Piancavallo, Italy. She finally scored her first victory in 1981 in a GS in Switzerland. In the next eight years, she became the most successful US skier on the women's World Cup tour, winning a total of 18 technical events (9 GS/ 9 slaloms) as well as a gold medal in combined at the 1989 FIS World Championships in Vail, Colorado. Born in Kentucky where her father raced horses, she moved to California with her mother Frances when she was a child. A ski instructor, Frances worked hard to raise her eight kid to love skiing and ski racing. Sheila, Tamara's older sister, competed before her in the US Ski Team. Unfortunately, she suffered a bad crash in 1977 in a World Cup downhill in Heavenly Valley and was in a coma for weeks. Tamara's career was marked by the tragic deaths of her parents and two of her brothers. Steve, a speed skier, he was the first man to pass the symbolic barrier of 200 km/h in the early 1980's. He died in a car accident in 1990. Tamara skied with a great "touch" and her technique was so smooth she seemed to move effortlessly down the slope. A member of the FIS Women's Committee since 1996, she became mother of Francesca in 1997.