The Fall Line: America's Rise To The Ski Racing Summit, Vinton - B +

                                                This is a fabulous, exciting book about the  two greatest American skiers: Bode Miller and Lindsay Vonn.  It details the twelve months that ended with the Vancouver Olympics in 2010.  Both had failed at Torino, Miller through apparent indifference and Vonn because of a crash.  Miller's ambivalence about the Olympics stemmed from his inner philosophies. He thought America's obsession was fueled by tv and inherently simplistic. A skiers merit was weighed over a World Cup season, not on one day every fourth year.
Miller was pretty much written-off for Vancouver. Lindsay, though, was the apple of NBC's eye. Both had transformed America's place in the ski world. Vonn was bigger and faster than almost all of the women and skied recklessly without any regard for injury. She piled up World Cup victories. Miller was even more reckless, a sort of self-taught unorthodox skiing savant. They had both won World Cup Overall titles. The American men's team had sunk so low in the period between the Mahre's and Miller that there were years when we didn't get a single point on the World Cup circuit. Points are rewarded on a sliding scale from first to 30th and there are up to five events almost weekly from late October until March. The World Cup events preceding the Olympics were viewed as a tune up and for Lindsay Vonn, the 2009-10 tour was a rousing success. She nabbed victory after victory. Bode had left the circuit the previous March and no one knew if he would return. The two previous seasons he had not competed as a member of the US Ski team, but on his own. In September, after everyone else in the business had spent months preparing their equipment and their bodies, an overweight Bode got in touch with the US Ski team and asked back in. His progress was slow and he missed most of December with a sprained ankle. The Vancouver Olympics were the US Ski teams finest performance ever. They won 21 medals, including the Women's Downhill for Vonn and three for Bode including gold in the Combined. Afterwards, he'd learned that there small fractures in the 'sprained'  ankle.
                                                The author closes with a brief summary of the ensuing years, which for Bode included the death of his brother, a marriage and a second child, many injuries and his sixth Olympic medal in 2014. For, Vonn there has been divorce, an affair with Tiger, innumerable injuries, but so many World Cup wins that she now leads the all-time women's list.  Unfortunately, both Vancouver and Sochi were weather-challenged, and Vinton points out that the next two Winter Olympics are also at altitudes where global warming could easily lead to a cancellation of the Alpine events. Thanks to my brother, Bill, for recommending this book.