The Fall Line: How American Ski Racers Conquered a Sport on the Edge

Harnessing natures most powerful forces, elite downhillers descend icy, rugged slopes at speeds cresting 90 miles per hour. For decades, American skiers struggled to match their European counterparts, and until this century the US Ski Team could not claim a lasting foothold on the roof of the Alps, where the sports legends are born.

Then came a fledgling class of American racers that disrupted the Alpine racing world order. Led by Bode Miller and Lindsey Vonn, Julia Mancuso and Ted Ligety, this band of iconoclasts made a place for their country on some of the worlds most prestigious race courses. Even as new technology amplified the sports inherent danger, the US Ski Team learned how to win, and they changed downhill racing forever.

The Fall Line is the story of how it all came together, a deeply reported reconstruction of ski racings most dramatic season. Drawing on more than a decade of research and candid interviews with some of the sports most elusive figures, award-winning journalist Nathaniel Vinton reveals the untold story of how skiers like Vonn and Miller, and their peers and rivals, fought for supremacy at the Olympic Winter Games.

Here is an authoritative portrait of a group of men and women taking mortal risks in a bid for sporting glory. A white-knuckled tour through skiings deep traditions and least-accessible locales, The Fall Line opens up the sexy, high-stakes world of downhill skiingits career-ending crashes, million-dollar sponsorship deals, international intrigue, and showdowns with nature itself.

With views from the starting gate, the finish line, and treacherous turns in between, The Fall Line delivers the adrenaline of one of the worlds most beautiful and perilous sports alongside a panoramic view of skiings past, present, and future.