Charles Christianson was having a stellar slalom run under dicey conditions. He was 50 feet from the finish, and could tell by the throaty surge of the crowd that he was about a second away from winning the prestigious 2007 World University Games in Bardonecchia, Italy.
Christianson broke over the final steep pitch and aggressively dug in his left ski. He careened forward and gunned for the finish. His leg didn't.
"My downhill ski just caught," the Williams College senior captain said. "It's like time slowed down. I could literally feel individual things tearing in my knee. Before I even hit the ground, I thought, 'Everything I've worked so hard for is gone. I put so much into this, and that's it - campaign over, season over, career over.' "
Christianson's damage was extensive. He had torn not one, but three of the four major ligaments in his left knee: The anterior cruciate ligament, the lateral collateral ligament, and the medial collateral ligament. He also ripped one of two menisci, the cartilage that cushions the knee joint.
"It didn't necessarily hurt," Christianson said. "It was more warm and loose. I have tons of friends who haven't come back from [knee injuries] or are never the same."
Despite the daunting prognosis, Christianson is back in action, and in a big way. Nine months after his injury, he returned ahead of schedule to dominate the 2007-08 New England college circuit. As the top gun in the East (No. 1 in both slalom and giant slalom according to Eastern Intercollegiate Ski Association rankings), Christianson is leading the Ephs into this weekend's NCAA Division 1 skiing championships in Montana.
Although quick to credit the many doctors, coaches, and teammates who helped him return to competition, there is one person Christianson will never be able to thank - the anonymous organ donor who posthumously willed the cruciate ligament that now holds together his surgically grafted knee.
If Christianson has his way, it's a knee that he aspires to flex on an Olympic podium, perhaps as soon as the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver.
"He's the complete package," said Ed Grees, the Alpine skiing coach at Williams. "He has the base in skiing and the willingness to use it in competitive situations. Charles has earned All-America honors in every NCAA race he has started. He won't be denied.
"As long as he stays healthy, making the US Ski Team is well within his grasp."
Bursting onto scene
Christianson - who'll turn 24 Saturday, the same day as his final college race - said he knew he wanted to ski for a living from a young age.Growing up in Anchorage, Christianson said his parents were "weekend warriors" on the slopes who pointed him downhill by age 3. He won a state championship at age 11. By the time he was a freshman in high school, classes began to interfere with his passion for racing, so his parents agreed to allow him to pursue both his dream and education at Rowmark Ski Academy in Utah. He was good enough to make the national junior team, then took two years off to travel abroad and qualify for a world-class ranking before enrolling at Williams.
In retrospect, Christianson described his racing as "poor" during that two-year interlude. But just as the 2004 season was about to wrap up, he exploded with dramatic improvement, his ranking soaring from about 350 to 150.
Although initially he feared he would begin as a freshman at Williams with little notice or fanfare, "all of a sudden I was shot into the collegiate circuit" as an up-and-coming prospect.
"He just seemed to me like a very developable athlete," said Grees. "He's technically very sound, and he's got a lot of confidence."
As a freshman, Christianson was invited to Austria for his first taste of the World University Games. Later in 2005, he qualified for the NCAA finals, earning fifth in the giant slalom at Stowe, Vt. He returned to the finals as a sophomore in 2006, skiing ninth in both the slalom and giant slalom in Steamboat Springs, Colo.
Christianson headed to Italy as a junior for the 2007 World University Games, but unseasonably warm January weather had deteriorated the course conditions. Under ordinary circumstances, the event might have been canceled. But Christianson said organizers had banked heavily on the slalom as the televised showcase race, and officials "dumped all sorts of chemicals on the snow to keep it from melting. The snow was just really, really weird. It was like marbles."
To adjust, Christianson retuned his skis between his first and second runs, leaving the edges rough to get a better bite. The strategy worked - until the final 50 feet of the race.
After his fateful fall, Christianson had to wait several weeks for surgery while swelling subsided. He returned to the United States and was examined by one of the nation's foremost knee surgeons, Richard Steadman of Vail, Colo. He was told a torn ACL can never heal, but it can be replaced. Steadman told him one option would be to cut and graft his own patellar tendon, but the danger would be pain from scar tissue. A better choice would be to harvest an intact ACL from a cadaver.
"I was completely, 100 percent disgusted by that," Christianson said. "But they kept telling me they had a really great match."
While agonizing over his decision, Christianson had one particularly bad dream in which he was laying on the operating table, and doctors wheeled in a young donor who had just died in a car accident. The experience was frightening, but he came to the realization that no one was going to die on his behalf just so he could continue skiing. Instead, he realized that the donor had expressed a wish to help people, "and after that, I was fine with it."
When asked if his attitude has changed enough so that he now carries a donor card in his own wallet, Christianson said, "I haven't had to renew my driver's license since then, but I think I will become an organ donor myself."
Getting back up to speed
Determined to "set the world record for recovery," Christianson initially thought he would attack his rehab as zealously as he could. "But then I thought, 'What's the point?' " His senior ski season was still nearly 10 months off, and if he did too much, too soon, he would only aggravate the injury. So instead, he spent a lot of monotonous time in the gym, where "the only thing I could use was the 15-pound dumbbells."By August, six months after the surgery, he traveled to Chile and was ready for his first ski run since surgery. Just pulling on his boots was emotional, Christianson said. The first time down the slope was pain-free, and afterward, "it's so corny, but I kissed the snow."
By December, he was back skiing competitively, and Christianson's dominant senior-season record was good enough to nail first-team All-East honors. Grees even thinks the rehab might have improved his technique. Christianson concurred, adding he's been more aggressive while maintaining straighter lines.
Grees and Christianson also agreed that the abbreviated format of this weekend's NCAA finals is likely to give Williams a realistic shot Saturday at winning the men's Alpine against bigger schools. Unlike the regular season, in which a team enters six racers but keeps only the best three scores, just three skiers are allowed to suit up in the finals. With a solid trio of Christianson, junior Eric Mann, and sophomore Rob Dyroff, "all of a sudden we are more competitive than the [regular] season," Grees said.
And the Ephs top-ranked captain has no qualms about heading to the finals with a No. 1 target on his back.
"We're looking to win the men's Alpine, and that's the only thing I can control," Christianson said. "I guess I've kind of gotten used to having the leader bib and performing with it."
