Golden

Chapter 1

November 2016 – Levi, Finland

I’m at the starting gate and my mind is blank. I’ve gone through the training runs and I know my lines. The next thing I remember is skidding to a stop at the end of the course and looking up to the clock and seeing my time. Lindsey is the first one out to me. She has that typical Lindsey Vonn smile on her face as she approaches me screaming “Myers!”

Winning the Downhill at Worlds was the highest of highs. But the next day racing Super G lead to the lowest of lows. Much like the day before, I don’t remember much from my run that day. Unlike the day before, it wasn’t because I was in the zone. Halfway down the course, I turned through one of the gates, caught air, and couldn’t recover. I remember trying to even my skis out but instead flying into the orange fencing. And then it's blank.

The next thing I remember is waking up in the hospital. My coach sitting next to me on his laptop and Lindsey next to him.

“Lindsey? What are you doing here?” I tried to sit up and immediately regretted it. Both my coach and Lindsey rushing over to my bed and helping me lay back down. The nurses and doctor rush in, check all of my stats and begin asking me questions.
“What year is it?”
“2016”
“Good Myers. What is the last thing you remember?” I tell them and then ask what day it is. It had been three days since that Super G race. The doctor proceeds to tell me that I broke two ribs and blew out my knee completely. I was still stuck on Lindsey being here though. Lindsey should have already been home, using the little time we had off to take it easy, not stuck in the hospital looking after me.

When I came onto the scene at 16, I was a skier who lived and died by each race. I raced with a reckless abandon that many criticized. I saw it as a way of survival. I needed to do well enough in the pro events to attract sufficient sponsors and support myself. I grew up in the foster care system, with my old ski coach eventually agreeing to foster me at 16 until I aged out of the system. After narrowly missing the cut for the Sochi Olympics when was 18, I started running into Lindsey a lot more. She saw me as a lonely Colorado kid who could do great things with a little bit of structure, and she treated me like a little sister. I was introduced to her training regimen, and for the first time took off the snow training seriously. I ate correctly, trained sufficiently, and saw major results.

Two days after waking up, Lindsey, our coaches and manager, and I were on a private charter back to Vail. Now 21, I was having the best season of my life and had my eyes set on Pyeong Chang that was only 14 months away. All I could think about on the flight home was the Olympics. Would I be able to recover in time to qualify? I had undergone surgery for my knee while I was still unconscious. The road back from a torn ACL was one I was familiar with. I had watched Lindsey fight back from blown out knees multiple times. It would be a grind and would take everything I had. But I was dead set on making it back in time to qualify for the Olympics.
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Nate is coming next chapter!