In the warm-up zone, I loop a resistance band around a fence post and step into it. Side-steps, monster walks, glute kicks until my hips burn and my legs feel like they belong to me again. Then I drop the band, jog a short loop in my race suit and jacket, knees high, arms loose. A few bouncing jumps in place, feeling the snow under my soles. Two, three short sprints on the flat to spike my heart rate.
Heart thumping. Breath warm in the cold air. Muscles humming.
This is the part that never lies. You either did the work or you didn’t.
Out of habit, my hand goes to my pocket. My fingers close around the phone, smooth and heavy, full of things I cannot afford to think about.
I don’t turn it on. For a second, I just stare at the black screen.
I walk over to one of the servicemen and hold it out. “Here. If I ask for this before I’m down, tell me to fuck off.”
He laughs. “Gladly.”
He tucks it into his own jacket. It feels like giving away a limb and a distraction at the same time.
It feels like handing over a vein; no French princess, no sexts, no little green dot to hide behind. If I want a high today, I have to earn it from the clock.
For now, there is only the hill.
***
At the start, the world narrows.
Bib three.
I slide into the gate area, skis creaking on the ramp, light a little flatter up here than it looked from below. The course crew moves like ghosts around us, slipping the track, brushing the start wand.
Leitner’s voice crackles in my ear through the radio.
“Niko.”
“Here.”
“Beaver Creek proved you can win big,” he says. “Now prove you can do it again without needing drama.”
The worddramastings. As if I planned the net, the one-ski circus, the headlines.
My jaw tightens, then I let it go.
“Copy,” I say. “Clean. Fast.”
I plant my poles, feel the grooves in the start ramp under my skis.
Tunnel vision slides into place.
Green.
I explode out of the gate.
The Saslong is different from Beaver Creek. The snow isn’t icy glass; it’s harder, grippier, the kind that rewards precision. My edges bite clean and the first roll opens beneath me like a trapdoor. I commit, tips hunting forward, body low, and the mountain gives me speed instead of punishing me for asking.
The gliding sections come fast. Long stretches where the skis just run, terrain pouring under me like water. I stay tucked, tight, aerodynamic, feeling the wind tear at my suit. No chatter. No hesitation. Just speed building, compounding, a freight train I’m steering with my hips and ankles.
The Camel Humps hit me in a sequence: bump, air, land; bump, air, land. I don’t overcook it. I take measured air, nothing flashy, landing exactly where I planned in inspection. The compression hits my quads like a hammer, but I stay over the skis, absorb it, explode out. No drama. Just doing the job.
Into Ciaslat, the terrain rolls and I carve through it like I’ve done this a hundred times. Early pressure, late release. The line is clean, almost elegant. My body remembers what to do without asking permission.
This isn’t surviving.
