Missing the Gate

It was a ways back in the late nineties, I was ski racing in New York, upstate, atop a long and winding Super G, the fastest discipline in which I partake. I’d made state championships three times, but had never gotten much higher, it didn’t help having an older brother who to Olympic dreams aspired. My coaches all said the problem was that I was not aggressive enough. Perfect technique and masterful control just did not bring me much luck. So on that day I said,”Screw it! Just bomb the whole course down.” The start ref said “racer ready,” I went in a tuck, staying low to the ground. Pressing forwards ‘till my shins bruised, I was rocketing along in fine style, pulling down the kinds of split times that I had not seen in a while. I must’ve broken sixty that run, the gates came unusually quick, nut it was all or nothing, I told myself and through the icy ruts I ripped. Then, before it could even register, blue fabric flashed by the wrong eye. it had come so fast I couldn’t move, the gate quickly passing by. The run of my life, already half done, Now rendered totally meaningless. I skied down the side, stuck in a daze, my mind refusing to register it. Later in the lodge, making things worse, I learned from some buds on the team, that the same older brother who lived to win had walked away with the race easily. Impossible moments, they still haunt me, twenty years on and I’m still cursing fate for bringing me to the cusp of glory… and then I miss the blasted gate! Ahhhhhhh! God damnit! I need a beer. Somebody get me a beer.