Photo:
Doug LePage

See also Contest 01: Chairlift Encounter

Flying Out of Hell
By CONOR MADIGAN

My mind races in the start house—how can I be on such a hill, owned by the Devil, yet still pray desperately to my God? I'm at the Hahnenkamm, a course tailor-made by the fiery maestro for those who live on the lunatic fringe of downhill racing–Klammer, the Crazy Canucks, Maier, and Rahlves. They all found ways to beat the Streif and cap their victories by tending bar at The Londoner, their souls easily sold with the promise of immortality.

I kick out and skate on a sheet of marble, reaching mach even before the Mausefalle, where I hit 60 meters of big-A. I land in the sun and try to get small, but the compression has me grasping for a handle. Through the S-combo and the carousel of the Steilhang, the right turn lasts forever as I feel the fence blow a kiss just inches from my left hip. Schussing through the catwalk and the goat trail in a fog, I catch my breath for a moment but feel like Dante being lead to seven more circles of inferno: dwelling only fans the piste's flames.

I traverse the Alte Schneise with boards chundering under me over the bumps and spring off the Seidlalmsprung another 40. Then–at last!–the finish is in sight. But first the Zielschuss, where Ghedina pulled a spread eagle but I just hold on for life.

I hit the final launch and sit back way too far on my heels. At 120 kilometers per hour I begin a backwards somersault. "God, where are you now?" I shout as my tails snap and my neck lands on the ice. My body landslides just short of the finish line.

I awake not in a comfortable bed next to the hot German woman I met during race training, but amid the whirling dervish of a helicopter and medical staff monitoring the intravenous line of morphine in my arm. "What happened?" I ask the crew.

"Ah," offered a paramedic, "today you didn't beat der Streif. Today, der Streif beat you." He laughed.

I gaze at the 100,000 Austrians cheering Eberharter as he blazes down the Mausefalle. They are a red and white sea of flags, blasting horns and bells to egg him on. I know that both God and the Devil laughed today.

                                                                                        Next: number 3


 Discuss this story in our Workshop forum