He pushes out of the gate, and the camera catches his first turns, compact, precise, nothing wild. He skis like a man who’s already met the helicopter and doesn’t intend to see it again.
I watch every frame, eyes glued to his line. Admiration and fear in the same breath.
He respects the roll, nails the blind crest like he’s got X-ray vision, sits a touch higher in the compression than he used to. The splits are decent. Not winning, but there.
“Come on,” I mutter. “Just bring it down.”
He does. Crosses the line, time pops: top ten. The crowd goes crazy anyway because it’s Thomas, because he’s here, because he made it back in one piece. Because this is something he can build on.
I sit back in the red chair when the last serious contender crosses the line, and the number next to my name doesn’t change.
Noise swells around me again—coaches, techs, media people converging. I barely hear them.
It settles slowly, like snow after a slide.
This is it.
Not almost. Not “good experience.” Not second by a breath.
First. In downhill.
On the Hannes Trinkl Strecke.
My fingers curl around the armrests of the cushioned chair. For a moment, I don’t smile at all. I just look up at my name on the board and let it sink all the way down.
This one’s mine.
***
Champagne tastes like victory and bad ideas.
It's everywhere. In my hair, on my eyelashes, down the inside of my collar where it's already turning cold. Matteo just dumpedhalf a bottle over my head while laughing like we're at a wedding instead of a World Cup podium with cameras everywhere.
I don't care. I'm laughing too, shaking champagne out of my eyes, grabbing the nearest bottle and going after him. The podium is slick with foam and melted ice, and I chase Matteo until he slips and nearly takes out Paco, the Swiss guy who finished third, who's standing there grinning like this is the best part of his day.
"Reiner!" he yells. "Not the eyes!"
Too late. I've already sprayed Paco right in the face, and he's coughing champagne and swearing in Swiss German, creative new insults that will probably get us all fined if the wrong microphone picks them up.
The rest comes in flashes after I step off the podium. The true media hell comes loose. A sponsor rep clapping my shoulder hard enough to leave a bruise, journalists yelling my name like I'm the answer to a prayer they forgot they said, cameras so close I can see my own grin reflected in the lenses. The Austrian flag waving somewhere in my peripheral vision, half the country trying to hug me through a fence.
Then I see her.
Not behind glass in the VIP area. Right here, in the center of my world.
Élise stands a few meters away, hair damp and wild, coat spattered with what looks like beer someone splashed on her in the crowd. She's holding a regular beer bottle, fingers wrapped around the neck like she's claimed it as her own, like she decided she deserved to be part of this mess too.
My brain does that stupid thing it always does with her. It time-travels. Beer bottle. Her mouth. That Olympic night that turned into a myth in my head, champagne and skin and her shaking hands on my chest like she was trying to climb out of her own life.
I shove through bodies and noise and wet snow until I'm standing in front of her.
She looks up. Eyes bright, cheeks pink from cold and chaos, lips parted like she's about to say something sharp. For a second the finish area disappears, and it's just her and me and the way my heart still hasn't figured out we stopped racing.
"Is this yours?" I ask, nodding at the bottle.
"It is now," she says, voice dry as ever, even with beer in her hair.
I reach out and take the neck of it over her hand. Our fingers overlap, slick and cold. Her skin is warmer than mine, which feels insulting considering I'm the one who just threw myself down a mountain at ninety miles an hour.
