Three-time Olympian and Raymond native Kirsten Clark announced her retirement from competitive skiing Monday in Portland. Clark has been with the U.S. ski team for 13 years and was ranked third in the world in 2003.

“Thirteen years is a long time, my body and my mind are telling me that,” Clark said. “It has been an incredible journey. I will cherish all the memories I have had, both good and bad.”

Clark’s racing career began when she would chase her older brother down the slopes at Sugarloaf Mountain. She started racing when she was only seven-years-old. She enrolled at Carrabassett Valley Academy and was the Junior Olympics downhill champion in 1994.

In 1996, the U.S. Ski Team came calling. Clark was just 17 at the time and her mother Joan thought she was too young to join the squad.

“We thought it was a little young,” Joan Clark said. “She got picked up at the end of her junior year of high school. We didn’t want them to take her for another year, but they wouldn’t hear of that. And she was afraid if she didn’t go and take advantage of the opportunity it may not be there later.”

So Kirsten Clark started her journey with the national team. Before she went, she met with her family to talk about the challenge.

“We sat down and had dinner and we told her ‘if this experience makes you a different person and you become like so many other top athletes, then it’s not worth it,'” said her father George. “She didn’t change, she’s still grounded.”

From there she went on to a great career that included three appearances in the Olympics – where her best finish was 12th in the downhill in the 2002 games in Salt Lake City.

In World Cup competition, Clark earned her first win in 2001 in Lenzerheide. That victory made her the first American woman to win a World Cup downhill race since Picabo Street did it in 1996.

In 2003 she won a silver medal at the World Championships in St. Moritz, Switzerland. That same year she placed third in the final downhill of the season and finished that year ranked third in the world. She also won several U.S. National Championships including last year at Sugarloaf.

Her ski season was de-railed in 2004 when she suffered the first injury of her career. In Haus, Austria, she crashed in the World Cup downhill tearing ligaments in both knees and breaking her right wrist.

“I was healthy a long time,” Clark said. “Then in 2004 when I crashed in Haus I think that set me back a bit. It made it difficult for me to get to that level again of going down the hill without thinking of the consequences. I’d never been hurt before and it’s difficult to overcome.”

“There are a lot of great memories with Kirsten,” said her former coach Jim Tracy. “The one important thing above all was the fact that she never gave up on herself, although there were times she definitely questioned it. She knew she had a strong support group of family, coaches and teammates who through the highs and lows always believed in her ability.”

Clark worked hard and came back from those career-threatening injuries only to get a staff infection in 2005 that cut another season short. Determined to go out on her own terms, Clark refused to give up.

“If I didn’t have my staff infection I may have been ready to (retire) last year,” Clark said. “But I wanted to go into a season 100 percent healthy. So I had an idea this would be my last year. As the winter progressed I came to the realization that my time had come.”

Clark will now step back from the world of ski racing. But she will have plenty of things to keep her busy.

“I think she probably has a tremendous opportunity to give back in the way of kids’ fitness camps,” said her mother. “A lot of children are sedentary. She wants to get them busy and active and I think it will be a good avenue for her to pursue. She probably will also do the office work for her husband; he’s a builder in the Lake Tahoe area. She has a step-son who is going to be at the Junior Olympics this week in California. So I’m sure she won’t lack for things to do.”

It is a bittersweet day any time a world-class athlete retires and Clark’s adieu is no different.

“What I’ll miss the most are the people that I travel with,” she said. “I’ll miss a lot of those people. I won’t be seeing them anymore. What I’ll miss the least is being away from home for months at a time. That begins to wear on me. I don’t like being gone as much as I was.

“I have no regrets. I knew in my heart and my body that the time had come. Because of that, it wasn’t such a hard decision. You reach a point that you know it’s time to hang up the race skis. But I’ll always ski, it’s such a great sport.”