Lucky Guy

"YOU SHOULDN’T LAUGH. That guy died." The comment is one of hundreds under the YouTube video in which Scott Macartney screams at 88 miles per hour down the World Cup’s most intimidating course, Austria’s Hahnenkamm, known for its clifflike plunges and hairpin turns. Macartney hits jump after jump in perfect aerodynamic form—knees tucked up to his chest, skis together, hands below boots. On the final jump of the run the skier rockets 12 feet into the air. Then his body rotates inexplicably to the right and his form disintegrates into that of a man falling off a step ladder, arms flailing before for impact. He slams onto the snowpack in an explosion of man and mountain, ice hissing and spraying, his helmet and left ski popping off. The limp body slides down the hill and across the finish line. It twitches for five seconds then goes still as a stone.

Watching the clip, it’s hard to believe that the skier didn’t meet his maker. No one can blame YouTube commenters for assuming so. Not even Macartney himself. “I was like, ‘Well, interesting,’” he says in the kitchen of his Kirkland home. The solid 5-foot 11-inch athlete with a thick mop of black hair has propensity for understatement. “I put a comment on that one, that yeah, I’m alive, I’m doing well. Not dead.”

Not dead, but the January 2008 crash put ­Macartney in a doctor-induced coma. He awoke, 11 hours later, with blurred vision in one eye. He was alive, but his ski career was on its deathbed.

Macartney has spent most of his 32 years on mountainsides vying to become one of the fastest skiers on the planet. He is a two-time Olympian with two top-three finishes on the World Cup circuit, despite a career pocked with injuries that have cemented his reputation as one of skiing’s most dogged competitors. The 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics in February might be his last chance to earn what has proven to be an elusive Olympic medal.

This month U.S. Ski Team officials and coaches will select four Olympic skiers to race in the men’s downhill and four for the men’s ­super-G. Their decision will be based on current World Cup standings as of mid-­January, just weeks before the Games open on February 12. But Macartney has missed chunks of each of the past two seasons due to injuries, hurting his rankings. He’s also one of the oldest skiers on the national team. Time is closing in on Macartney, and his quadrennial moment in the spotlight may soon end for good.


Macartney started skiing at age two and a half at Crystal Mountain, the Cascade ski resort in Seattle’s backyard. He was racing by seven. His parents, John and Laurie Macartney, had met while on the Crystal Mountain ski patrol, volunteer gigs they continued during weekends off from their jobs as educators. (Laurie taught chemistry and biology at Redmond High School. John was a principal at Issaquah Middle School.) Kids of volunteer patrollers skied for free at Crystal, and the Macartneys took full advantage.

As soon as school let out on Fridays, the family would drive to Crystal, ski all weekend, and return Sunday night. “We were up at the mountain every week, as far back as I can remember,” says Scott’s brother Matt, two years his senior and a top-ranked telemark ski racer before he retired in 2007.

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Published: January 2010