The nearest snow was more than a thousand kilometers away. The rest of the Norwegian Alpine ski team was training in Canada.
Yet, Aksel Lund Svindal, the overall World Cup champion in two of the past three seasons, was on Ocean Drive, sitting under an umbrella, wearing gaudy palm-tree shorts, sipping a Corona.
Svindal had been at the beach for about 10 days and had the tan to prove it. He wore it like a disguise. No one recognized the world’s top skier, not this far from snow and winter.
“This is great,” Svindal said last week.
It was cloudless, about 30°C, and Svindal was still mesmerized by the seductive sway of palm trees. “But I would rather be in Canada with freezing blue toes and skiing with my teammates right now.”
Svindal did not become a champion skier and 2010 Olympic favorite in four skiing events by skirting the next big challenge. He was restless. The sore leg that knocked him off the tour for a month was feeling better. He wanted to get to Canada to get ready for this weekend’s races at Lake Louise, Alberta, the site of his first World Cup victory in 2005.
He mostly wanted to be full speed on Dec. 4 for races at Beaver Creek, Colorado, the site of his two most memorable runs, one last year, one the year before.
It was two years ago when Svindal, who was the defending overall champion and leading the 2007 to 2008 season standings, crashed badly in a training run on Beaver Creek’s Birds of Prey course. Svindal flew off a jump and, after a few frightful seconds airborne, landed flat on his back. His skis violently discharged from his feet.
The edge of one sliced a gash in Svindal’s right buttock so deep that surgeons opened his abdomen to assess the damage.
Svindal skittered into a safety fence and spent most of the next month in hospitals in Colorado and Norway.
Svindal returned to Beaver Creek last year. His body was healed. His mind was not.
“I was not looking forward to that first run,” Svindal said.
But fear is simply a downhiller’s adrenaline. On the day of the race, Svindal whooshed down the upper part of the course with unwavering aplomb. He was his old self, as good as ever, all calm on the outside.
He sailed over the lip. He landed smoothly. He won.
“It was almost too much to digest,” he said.
He won the downhill event. He won the super-G the next day, then At season’s end, he captured the overall title again.
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