Author, Jennifer Woodlief, pulls no punches about Johnson's meteoric rise to international fame and the reasons for his self-destructive descent. Woodlief could have written an inspirational saga. But her story is full of grit and harsh personal sequences, an un-flinching and historically rich rendering of a ski champion's troubled career.

With Johnson's full cooperation, and working with a number of close friends, former teammates, coaches, and competitors, Woodlief, a reporter for Sports Illustrated, chooses instead to reveal Johnson's life as a heartfelt tale of deep disappointment.

In 1984 the 23-year-old Johnson broke the long established European domination of downhill ski racing. His first victory that season, on the famed Lauberhorn at Wengen, Switzerland, was an explosive surprise. The U.S. men's team had never before captured first place in World
Cup downhill competition.

A month later at the XIV Winter Olympics in Sarejevo, Yugoslavia, the shockingly cocky newcomer irked his European competitors by predicting victory. That brashness brought him instant comparisons to Joe Namath and Mohammed Ali. Johnson's scary brilliant gold medal winning run down the Bjelesnica course in Yugoslavia was something out of a Hollywood scriptwriter's dream.

Open, raw, with a troubled past and defiant streak that offered no apologies, Bill Johnson's outrageous egotism is both the hero and the villain of the book. He was a lady's man, braggart, bully, and show-off.

As fellow Canadian racer, Steve Podborski, reveals in the harrowed tale: "I'm hard-pressed to find a nice thing that Bill did for other people, but he never did anything nice for himself, either."

The limelight didn't last long. The following year many U.S. team staff members, including Johnson's ski tech and trainer, moved on to other positions within the ski industry. Snubbed by teammates, his quick temper almost got him tossed off the team after a near fight with a coach. He fell at Val Gardena and underwent an operation to repair his left knee. A recurring back problem resulted in more surgery. More importantly, the results didn't come, and he was left off the '88 Olympic Team, unable to defend his medal. By the end of the decade he was through with amateur competition.

Sixteen years later, in 2001, bankrupt, divorced, and living in a mobile home, the ever-recalcitrant Johnson mounted an improbable comeback to Olympic glory, only to crash and burn horribly in a qualifying race that left him. to this day. brain damaged and in need of constant care.

Sports books are almost always about athletes striving to prove their mettle, ostensibly to the world, but really to themselves. Ski To Die is no Pollyanna piece, but a book in which the potential for disaster, on and off-slope, is real and ever present. Woodlief documents individual triumph but also the consequences of broken families, criminal activity, death of loved ones, and poverty. Success is experienced, not so much as victory but as a blessed relief.

Maybe the successes are what allow Johnson, even after the crash, to face life's reversals without surrendering to despair. For Johnson, his self-worth is never in question, but neither is it an issue of any special significance. Thus, the psychologically-suspect guy emerges as an intriguing
character, a man who realizes that ski racing is the only remaining thing of importance, the only thing left to make any sense.

Although a detailed effort, one wonders if Woodlief goes far enough in revealing some of Johnson's Kong-sized aberrations, nefarious activities, and deceptions. Nor are there any sensory descriptions of downhill racing to
completely warn us of the discipline's on-snow dangers. Some of the interviews appear stilted, as if conversations were cut off to protect a person who can no longer protect himself.

Ski To Die is a disturbing and sad tale that arrives here at the start of an Olympic year (2006) to remind us that fame can be not only fleeting, but sometimes tormenting.