Whap.
We all come so close together I can barely distinguish mine from the other three. The spectators scream and shout, bells ringing and whistles calling to us, bringing us down the last few seconds. My gaze is locked on the finish line. Nothing to do now but hold on. It’s all happened in a blink.
I come to a stop in a spray of flying snow. Austin’s right in front of me, wheeling around so we finally rest face to face. His mouth is open, chest in his tight-fitting race suit pumping hard as he fights for air.
“Did we do it?” I ask, though the question comes out as more a strangled gasp than anything intelligible. Our gazes swing to the board, straining to make out the results.
There’s nothing. On the screen, a photo of the four of us coming over the line. We might as well be doing an acrobatic dance routine. The precision is so impressive. The crowd stills, murmuring in anticipation, but even from the picture it’s hard to say for sure. Me. Maybe Austin? The Swedish skier can barely be seen, but I can’t tell if that’s because he’s crouched next to one of us and invisible to the camera, or so far behind he’s out of the frame that has captured a specific thousandth of a second.
A cry goes up, so loud it makes me jump before I go back to the leaderboard.
1. GRIMM, A (CAN)
2. BERARD, C (CAN)
3. OHASHI, S (JPN)
4. BERG, J (SWE)
The difference in our times is less than four tenths of a second.
My arms fly up on their own, and the shout that erupts from my lungs is pure triumph. I might as well have won the whole thing. Beside me, Austin slumps over his poles, jamming them into his armpits to keep himself from pitching over entirely. Ohashi and Berg offer congratulations. Their race is done. We shake hands, then, once they’ve moved on to the media pen, high-five and celebrate a few seconds longer before we follow.
No Tara this time. Everyone has questions now. I repeat the same words over and over.
“I’m trying to race the best race I can.”
“Everyone skiing at this level has a shot at winning it all.”
“I’m focused on the next race, no further than that.”
My head spins. It’s a whirlwind, and the time between races gets shorter and shorter as the field gets cut by half.
We head to the lift and my stomach growls. Everything feels like it’s happening too fast.
“You okay?” Austin asks, standing by my side as we wait for the chair to pass so we can push into the loading area.
“Yeah.” Only I’m not. My pulse is racing. My brain is a tornado of thoughts and scenarios. I play a mental highlight reel of Ivan pointing out things to remember. Places where the run will get slower in the afternoon as the snow softens infinitesimally in the cold winter sun. The best places to pass and what to do when someone else knows the same thing and tries to pass you. I shake my head. “No. I’m not. Can you take the next lift?”
Austin doesn’t question. He leans into his poles and watches as I slide into the loading area and sit back onto the chair.
The silence as I pull out of the base and rise into the air fills me with the same relief as the best orgasm of my life. I close my eyes. Focus on breathing. In for four, hold it for four, out for six, hold for four.
The litany of chatter between my ears fades away.
Fuck. For all this is another day on the mountain and another race, this is the most intense thing I’ve ever done. I glance over my shoulder. Austin’s sitting in the chair behind. I give him a thumbs-up, and he responds with the same. We don’t speak. The joking from the past days, Austin grabbing his ass and telling me the pain is my fault. It’s all gone now. We are fully locked in.
Two more races.
Matthieu’s out. Came third in his quarter final. I’m so focused on my race I don’t even think to ask, but when we reach the top of the hill, Kage is there, standing alone and he tells us.
“But you qualified?” I ask.
He bites his lower lip. “There were two Americans in my quarter final. They took each other out in the chicane.”
A win is a win. It could have just as easily been him wiping out through those tight turns.
At least he’s not in our semi. Wouldn’t it be wild if he made it to the Big Final and we had a one-two-three Canadian podium?
