GO TO THE START

Retired alpine skier Janyk shares tales from the ski slope in this debut sports memoir.

Raised in British Columbia, the author grew up in a family of skiers. One of his grandfathers first came to North America to compete with the University of Zürich ski team; he stayed when World War II broke out and worked as an engineer designing chair lifts. It’s perhaps unsurprising, then, that Janyk found success in the sport in his youth. By the time he was 12, he was already placing in youth competitions. At 15, he began competing in events hosted by the International Ski Federation, whose ranking system is used to identify the best skiers in the world. In this memoir, Janyk recounts the moments, mentors, accidents, and races that took him from being a kid with “excessive energy” who was small for his age to a world-class athlete representing Canada at the 2006 Olympic Games. The book offers an insider’s view of the training and lifestyle of a skier on “the circuit,” traveling the world and skiing its premier slopes. He offers insight into how to reach the heights of the Ski World Cup podium…and how to face one’s fears while staring down the steepest ski courses. Janyk’s candid prose is conversational, though it kicks up a notch in rhetoric when describing the beauty of the slopes: “I felt my skis right away; the front of the ski was picking up early in the turn, connecting me to the snow. My timing was in sync and flowing with the hill. I was dancing! This is why I go through the pain and discomfort—for the feeling of being alive on course.” His story is perhaps not as dramatic as those of some professional athletes, but his musings regarding the relentless pursuit of a dream are refreshingly blunt: “I never found the true fulfillment that I thought would come from such a result,” he writes of winning the bronze at the World Championship. Ski fans, in particular, will enjoy this not-always-smooth ride.

A sleek, in-depth remembrance from a world-class skier.