team staff members, including Johnson's ski tech and trainer, moved on to other positions within the ski industry. He was a lady's man, braggart, bully, and show-off.Īs 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." 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. Johnson's scary brilliant gold medal winning run down the Bjelesnica course in Yugoslavia was something out of a Hollywood scriptwriter's dream. That brashness brought him instant comparisons to Joe Namath and Mohammed Ali. men's team had never before captured first place in WorldĪ month later at the XIV Winter Olympics in Sarejevo, Yugoslavia, the shockingly cocky newcomer irked his European competitors by predicting victory. His first victory that season, on the famed Lauberhorn at Wengen, Switzerland, was an explosive surprise. In 1984 the 23-year-old Johnson broke the long established European domination of downhill ski racing.
#SKI OR DIE BOOK BILL ACCIDENT FULL#
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. 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. Woodlief could have written an inspirational saga. Author, Jennifer Woodlief, pulls no punches about Johnson's meteoric rise to international fame and the reasons for his self-destructive descent.
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