Los Angeles, CA (Sunday, July 14, 2002) - Women's Olympic halfpipe gold medalist Kelly Clark (Mount Snow, VT), whose victory despite a partially torn right medial collateral ligament was the first American gold medal of the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City, was chosen Wednesday night as the top Action Sports Athlete – male or female – at the 10th ESPY Awards broadcast on ESPN.

Clark, who also was named one of the top five fashion winners at the ESPYs (with Serena Williams and Jennifer Capriati, among others) for an off-the-shoulder dress, is still up for the Action Sports Athlete award in a Teen Magazine poll. Among her opposition: men's Olympic halfpipe silver medalist Danny Kass (Hamburg, NJ) and 1998 Olympic moguls champion Jonny Moseley (Tiburon, CA), who finished fourth in the '02 Games as he introduced his innovative – and controversial – "Dinner Roll" off-axis trick.

In other ESPY honors, mono-skier Sarah Will (Vail, CO), who won four alpine gold medals at the Paralympics in March, was a nominee for the first outstanding disabled athlete.

"It was pretty cool to be part of that," she said. "It was a great honor to be included with those great athletes."

Clark, who turns 19 on the 26th of this month, was headed to Mount Hood, OR, for her first riding since the surgery. She underwent arthroscopic surgery in May and doctors found what had been thought to be a meniscus injury was a torn MCL.

"It had been bothering me all season but I didn't know it [the MCL] had happened. It didn't heal right, though; there was some scar tissue and it was kinda weird, so they cleaned it up," she said. "I'm just lucky I didn't have anything more serious."

Looking back, she may have injured the ligament in the first Chevy Truck U.S. Snowboard Grand Prix halfpipe contest, one of five Olympic qualifying events last season. She said landing on the flats in any 'pipe was particularly painful, according to Clark, "but I just tried to keep going."

Despite the fashion award, Clark indicated that walking in high heels down the shiny stairway to the stage for her ESPY may have been more hazardous than almost anything she's tried in soft boots on a snowboard. "I was just trying not to fall down," she said with a grin.