Since 1998, the Leif Odmark Award has been presented to athletes acknowledged for their good sportsmanship, honoring young skiers whose positive attitude and behavior is an inspiration to others. These athletes consistently show a love of the sport, a desire to be part of the team, showing up on time, and having a positive attitude.

Leif Odmark (1920-2004), known as “Mr. Sun Valley,” was the eldest son of a Swedish father and a Norwegian mother. Born in Sweden, he was a Swedish National Ski Team Member in Cross Country Skiing/Ski Jumping. Leif arrived in Sun Valley in 1948 and began a 22-year career as an instructor in the Sun Valley Alpine School. He was chosen to be the head coach for the U.S. Men’s Cross Country Ski Team for the Nordic Combined in the 1952 Norway Olympic Games. 

In 1970 he founded the Sun Valley Nordic Ski School and Touring Center, which was the first full-time cross-country ski school and racing school in the United States. He ran the Nordic Center until 1988 when he sold it to Sun Valley, and was President of the Ski Touring Instructors Examination Board and Founding Member/President of the Northern Intermountain Ski Instructors Association.

A positive and dynamic force in his sport, Leif sponsored and staged free cross country skiing clinics and races for physically challenged athletes, seniors, and children. His passion for cross country skiing and lifelong efforts to share it reserve his place in the sport’s history. Inducted into the Sun Valley Ski Hall of Fame and Northwest Ski Hall of Fame, Leif was also a world-class marathon runner, semi-pro soccer and ice hockey player, and won Masters Class gold medals in Alpine/Nordic Skiing. 

He was a true Renaissance man, father, entrepreneur, pioneer, visionary, philanthropist, coach, author, inventor, world-class athlete, and a charming European gentleman.

Award recipients’ names are engraved on the Leif Odmark Award perpetual plaque, which is displayed in the SVSEF Training Center at Warm Springs.

*Sources: Alf Engen Museum Foundation, Idaho Mountain Express