VERMONT SPORTS HALL OF FAME

(Photo Credit: USOC)

Putney

Nordic Skiing

Inducted 2017

A pioneer in the United States in women's cross country skiing, Martha Rockwell was a member of the first USA women's Nordic ski team to compete at the Olympics in 1972, and she made a second trip in 1976. 

Between 1969 and 1975 Rockwell won several national distance titles capturing 18 of 19 possible U.S. championships over that period. Twice she was voted the USA's top Nordic competitor. 

She raced in the first three events offered to women, the 5K, 10K and Nordic relay, at the 1972 Olympics in Sapporo, Japan. She also competed at the 1976 Olympic Games.  

In 1973 she won her first international race, a 7.5K event at Castelrotte, Italy, and had the highest American finish in a women's FIS race, 10th, in 1974.  She went on to win five of six European races in 1975 finishing 10th overall in the World Cup standings.

Following retirement from competition she coached Dartmouth's women's ski team from 1979 to 1987. The Martha Rockwell Award is given by the school's skier that has performed the best throughout the season. The 2012 winner was Sophie Caldwell, also an Olympian from Vermont who is the granddaughter of Rockwell's former coach and fellow VSHOF inductee, John Caldwell.

Twice the winner of Ski Magazine's U.S. Nordic Skier of the Year (1975-76), she was inducted into the U.S. Ski Hall of Fame in 1986 and the Vermont Ski Museum Hall of Fame in 2005. 

Martha was selected to the fourth VSHOF class in 2015 but deferred her induction to the fifth class.