Chapter 18
Ask the Champion
Courchevel, France
ZLATA
I don’t know what I’m going to say to him when we meet.
I only know I came for him.
The thought keeps circling as I shift my weight on my skis, fighting the slope.
The fence shakes with every cowbell, every thump of the crowd.
We’re somewhere in the middle of the steep, where the course pitches from “this looks sporty” to “this is stupid.” On TV, the Courchevel slalom hill looked like a white strip with some colored toothpicks stuck in it. In person, it’s a wall of polished ice.
Half the people pressed against the net are on skis, the other half in boots, clinging to poles or to each other.
Every few minutes, someone loses a battle with gravity and slides a few meters down, arms pinwheeling, taking two other fans with them in a tangle of jackets and skis.
The whole fence ripples with laughter and shouted apologies, then settles again.
I dig my edges in a little harder. No way I’m joining the human avalanche before the final.
“Next at the start, bib number twelve, Christian Leitinger,” the announcer booms from somewhere below, voice bouncing off the trees.
The next racer drops in, and the noise around me swells. I’ve watched slalom on TV my whole life. I know the camera angles, the slow-mos, the perfect replay of the best two turns. Up here, though, it’s something else entirely.
On the screen, slalom is a dance—quick feet, neat arcs, a little spray.
Here, the gates look like they’re trying to kill people.
The man in front of me slams his shin guards into the plastic so hard the sound makes my teeth clench.
Poles crack, panels whip back, snow explodes off his skis in ugly chunks, the sound of edges grinding on the firm icy surface loud enough to be heard over the crowd.
The skier’s upper body is almost still, legs a blur.
He drops past my line of sight, and for a second, all I see is his helmet and the stuttering trail he leaves behind.
“Wow,” I murmur under my breath. “Madness.”
The next one is worse—in a good way. Even from halfway down the hill, I can feel the force he’s putting into the snow, the way he’s riding the outside ski right to the edge of a fall.
My body flinches with every blind roll; I know exactly what my quads would feel like by that gate.
It’s brutal, efficient, nothing like the smooth elegance TV sells.
I’m mesmerized. I’ve never been to a World Cup slalom in person. I thought I understood it. I didn’t.
The commentator rattles through names and splits, all of it washing over me as colored helmets flick in and out of my window on the course.
I clap when other racers come by, ring the little cowbell Anna insisted I bring, shout for the random bibs that hang on for dear life.
I’m genuinely into the race; I can’t not be.
But under the cheering, there’s that steady hum in my chest.
He’s still up there.
Winning the first run means he goes last. Longest wait, biggest pressure. Everybody else’s time on the board, nothing between him and the globe but sixty seconds and a hill that can spit you out any moment.
My glove vibrates. I fumble the phone out, cupping it behind my hip so I don’t drop it into the slalom track. Anna’s message flashes up over a blurry photo from the finish:
They say on TV, he’s already won the globe, hasn’t he? No need for nerves, is there?
I stare at the little bubble for a second, then type back with my thumb:
Ask me in five minutes.
I tuck the phone away just as the announcer’s voice lifts, pitch changing.
“Now, at the start, your first-run leader, wearing bib number three… Austria’s Fabio Baier!
The noise hits like a physical thing. Cowbells, horns, someone behind me screaming his name right into my helmet. The fence lurches. A guy on tourist Salomons loses the fight with gravity and slides past my hip, laughing helplessly as his girlfriend grabs for his jacket and misses.
I plant my poles wider, knees bent, eyes locked on the strip of course I can see.
Up top, a tiny red-white-red figure pushes out of the gate.
On TV, he always looks smooth, almost relaxed.
Even in GS, you can tell when he’s on; it’s like watching water find its way.
Today in the slalom, he’s something else.
On the screen at the finish, they showed his first run in slow-mo—hips low, shoulders quiet, face set in that particular not-smile he gets when he’s fully inside a course.
From here, he looks like the result of anger and geometry having a baby.
He knifes through the first gates, upper body steady, legs snapping side to side so fast my eye can’t track each turn.
Every hit on the plastic sends a shock through my boots.
The hill falls away under him, the combination heaves into that gnarly middle section, and my lungs forget what they’re supposed to be doing.
Come on, I think, uselessly like he can hear me over a stadium and a TV helicopter.
He’s higher than the guys before, braver into the offset, not guarding the line at all.
I can see the choice from here: stay safe and brake, or let the skis run and trust that his legs will hold.
He chooses the second, and for a split second it looks like the whole thing might go sideways—tiny skid, spray, edge chattering.
He doesn’t pull back. He loads the outside ski harder, finishes the turn like he’s telling the hill no, and the next gate is suddenly under control again.
People around me go insane. I’m pretty sure I’m one of them. My cowbell is somewhere under somebody’s boot; my throat is already raw from shouting over the weekend, and I hear myself yell anyway.
By the time he drops below my level, there’s that strange, thick quiet in my chest that comes when something is decided before the clock knows it. I can’t see the finish, but I can read the body language: he’s not standing up, he’s not checking, he’s not skiing like a man trying to preserve a lead.
He’s skiing like the kind of idiot who wants to win a second run, too.
The announcer’s voice cracks with the time. The board flicks on the screen set up by the fence: green lights, big numbers, the gap enough to send a signal to everybody who doubted him.
He’s done it.
People are hugging strangers, flags whipping wild in the wind, someone’s beer spilling onto my ski. I barely manage to stay upright as the whole row surges. My phone buzzes again, multiple times. I don’t look. My eyes are fixed on the big screen streaming the action below.
The camera finds him, helmet off now, hair plastered to his forehead.
Max is clapping him on the back, someone’s shoving a flag into his hand, and he’s grinning that stunned, almost disbelieving grin I’ve only seen a couple of times.
They’re already building the provisional podium; this stupid stunt for sponsors meant to announce the winners before the fans disperse.
They shove a pair of lighter skis, some next season prototype, into his hand and push him toward the podium.
There he breathes hard, kneeling on one knee, composing himself, barely managing to clap as they call the third and second guys’ names.
When they call his name, he raises his hands, a pair of skis in one of them, leans his head back, shouts with joy, and the crowd eats it up.
The cameras zooms in for a moment on the big glass trophy waiting behind the fence for the ceremony, his name engraved in it already.
They had time; mathematically, he won the overall yesterday with the giant slalom win.
He could take a break to watch the slalom with a beer, and still nobody could take the trophy from him.
My heart does something painful and stupid in my chest.
What was I even thinking, letting this guy go?
I could have him for myself.
Then I blink. And correct my thought.
I will get him for myself.
The calm certainty of that thought startles me more than his win. It doesn’t feel like delusion or fanfiction. It feels like deciding on a line in inspection and knowing my skis will hold if I commit. I must say, I like my new me.
I jab my poles into the snow, twist my skis downhill, and push off from the fence.
The slope drops away under me immediately.
There’s no space to make graceful, event-poster turns; I’m slowly slaloming through a forest of legs and forgotten skis and abandoned cups, dodging people who are trying to stand still and failing.
A guy in a retro French team jacket goes down in front of me; I hop his tail, mutter a quick “sorry,” and keep going.
The roar from the finish pulls me down like gravity. I weave past a kid in a cow costume, duck under a rogue flag, and aim for the gap by the bottom fence where I’ll be able to leave my skis and go closer to see the podium.
If I’m going to plant myself in his path, I want to see him lift that globe first.
***
By the time I skid into the finish area, the podium is already set up—three white blocks on the snow, FIS banners behind, speakers stacked like Lego against the fencing.
The air down here feels different; heavier with bass, hotter with bodies.
Flags are everywhere, red-white-red, red-white-blue, and all kinds of other colors whipping and slapping against my shoulders.
I stack my skis against a hut and head to the fan area. The big screen above the finish is replaying his second run in slow-mo for the third time. Even in close-up, it still looks like he’s about to fall off the hill and somehow doesn’t.
The announcer’s voice booms over everything, switching from English to French and back, reciting splits and points and sponsors. My brain catches about every third word; the rest is just noise.