Inspiring skier gets own statue; Chicago native won seven

Cara Dunne-Yates never saw the slopes of Colorado, though she loved to ski them.

"She'd been so inspirational to so many during her life," says Mike Dunne, the father of the blind Paralympics medalist from Chicago who died in 2004. "I wanted that to continue."

So Dunne -- with the help of more than 100 donors, including cyclist Lance Armstrong, singer Vince Gill and Chicago author Scott Turow -- has created a memorial to his daughter in the form of a bronze statue set at the base of Snowmass mountain, just outside Aspen, Colo., and home to Challenge Aspen, a sporting program for disabled athletes.

The sculpture, by Idaho artist Jerry Snodgrass, includes Dunne-Yates' guide dog Haley and messages in Braille to encourage disabled athletes.

Dunne-Yates -- a Taft High School, Harvard University and UCLA law school grad who'd been blind since she was 4, as a result of retinal cancer -- was one of the few athletes in the Olympics or Paralympics to have won medals in both Summer and Winter Games.

A native Chicagoan who later lived in Massachusetts, she was 34 when she lost her battle with cancer, after having raced her way to seven Paralympic medals -- three bronze and four silver -- as a skier and cyclist.

Seeing her race down a mountain, champion skier Billy Kidd once said, was "like watching a dancer on skis."

Photo: The bronze statue of Cara Dunne-Yates includes her guide dog Haley and messages in Braille to encourage disabled athletes. It sits at the base of Snowmass mountain outside Aspen, Colo.; Photo: Cara Dunne-Yates graduated from Taft High School, Harvard University and UCLA law school.