World Cup skier's career just keeps going uphill

After a long season of racing down the mountains of Europe and North America, Steve Nyman, the Utah-born-and-raised World Cup skier, has returned to Orem to unwind and let his body heal. He is sitting in a Barnes and Noble bookstore, but it quickly turns into an aerobic exercise. He changes positions by the minute, crossing and uncrossing his legs and squirming in his seat, clearly uncomfortable.

"I'm actually trying to stretch my legs," he says. "You just get beat up skiing."

You think football players take hard hits; try racing down the Alps at freeway speeds and taking a few falls along the way, working with only a net and helmet. Let's see, he has a bruise on the top of his tibia and the bottom of his femur, where the two bones actually slammed into each other somewhere in his knee. He has a hamstring pull and a hyper-extended knee from a training-run crash. He has compressed discs in his back, which he has had treated with homeopathic injections.

"I'm going to a chiropractor when I'm done here," he says. "There's going to be a lot of rehab this summer."

Racing in Europe from October to April took its toll, but in the process Nyman turned some heads. He finished 10th in the overall downhill standings and claimed two podiums — third place at Beaver Mountain, Colo., and first place in Val Gardena, Italy.

The latter was a monumental victory, although it was lost on most Americans.

"You wouldn't believe how hard it is to convince the media how big of a deal a World Cup win is," says Juliann Fritz of the United States Ski and Snowboard Association. It's the equivalent of winning a PGA Tour event or a NASCAR race, and it's a relatively rare occurrence for Americans, let alone Utahns. Despite Utah's reputation as a ski haven, with the World's Greatest Snow and an Olympics on its resume and decades of raising skiers, the state has produced only two winners on the World Cup tour — Ted Ligety (the 2006 Olympic champion) and Nyman.

"The sky's the limit," says U.S. coach Chris Brigham. "Steve can take it as far as he wants to take it. He has the ability and the head for it."

What makes the 25-year-old Nyman's performance even more encouraging is that downhill racers don't usually reach their peak years until their late 20s or even well into their 30s. The same downhill courses are used from year to year, giving experienced skiers a distinct advantage with their accumulated knowledge of the terrain, technique and tactics.

"Winning the downhill takes a lot of experience," says Brigham. "You see that in the results."