PA Sport is following Great Britain downhill skier Roger Cruickshank
throughout his build-up to next February's Winter Olympics in Turin.
In his own weekly column Cruickshank will reveal the highs and lows of life on
the World Cup circuit as he seeks to fulfil one of his lifetime ambitions.
You could say I did not have the best of starts to my skiing career.
I fell and broke my right leg in my second-ever skiing lesson when I was five
years old, so my parents were not exactly keen on me trying again.
When I was nine I persuaded them to let me have another go after making
friends at the local ski hill to Banchory where I grew up.
We had trials for the local race league and just about everybody got picked
except me. I was the one left sitting at the bottom of the dry slope crying my
eyes out.
But I kept trying and by the time I was 13 I was good enough to get picked for
the British children's team. Since then I have always dreamed of representing
Great Britain in the Olympics.
On March 5 this year I had another big setback. I crashed in an international
giant slalom race in Arber in Germany. I slid on my hip into a bank of fresh
snow, my leg stopped dead and my body carried on.
My femur went through my tibia. They had to take bone from my hip and totally
reconstruct the tibia. They put nine pins and a plate in my left leg, which I
will have for the rest of my life.
I am flight lieutenant in the RAF - I don't get scared flying at 700mph upside
down, and when I'm skiing downhill at around 100mph I just feel the adrenaline
pumping through. You could say I don't get scared very easily.
But just before I went into theatre I was the most scared I have ever been. My
surgeon Andy Williams did not know the extent of my injury, nor even if I was
ever going to be able to ski again.
I remember when I came round from the anaesthetic he came up to me and shook
my hand and said 'I tell you what, I've done a great job but you've had a hell
of a lot of metal work done', and I passed out again.
I was on a leg-bending machine for five days, 10 hours a day, which when you
have had that done to your knee, it bloody hurts. But I was back on skis again
within six months.
I had a lot of friends supporting me, especially my physio Sandy Lyle, and if
it wasn't for the help I have had from the air force I would definitely not even
be in this position today.
I have been back on snow for 14 days and it feels good again. Every day during
my injury I woke up and the only thing that kept me going was knowing that if I
got back on skis again I could make the Olympics.
Before my crash I had made the qualifying standard so it challenged me. I have
always believed that if you really want something, a lot of it comes down to
mind over matter.
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