The Straight Course: Speed Skiing in the Sixties

The Straight Course takes us back to the early days of competitive speed skiing, the 1960s. First in Portillo Chile, and then in Cervinia, high in the Italian Alps as Dorworth and his companions and contemporaries struggled to break the world record for speed on skis—and sometimes did exactly that. The Straight Course offers us an insider’s look at some little known, and incredibly exciting pages of ski history. But it’s a lot more than just a retelling of the skiing feats of an earlier generation. This book is an intensely personal exploration of how and why a skier, and maybe anyone, can put themselves on the line, make commitments and keep them, balance fear and fearlessness, and ultimately explore skiing as a metaphor for life. The Straight Course is also available as a trade paperback and in electronic editions, Kindle and ePub, from all the usual places. It was published in 2011 by Western Eye Press.