Alpine ski racer Ben Griffin knows what it feels like to be less than 1mm away from losing a sporting career - it's also how close he came to life in a wheelchair.
The 22-year-old broke his back in a training accident in May last year, when he landed awkwardly while practising some aerial moves in a foam pit.
"I was trying to pull a triple front flip when I landed on my head. There wasn't enough give in the foam and I heard a crunch."
That "crunch" was the sound of his C7 vertebrae fracturing.
The "burst" bone in his back "squeezed up the spinal canal to next to nothing", he said.
"On X-rays, [the surgeons] pointed out that there was less than a millimetre to having my spinal cord severed,
"The same surgeons who pointed out his life-threatening injury subsequently fused his back together - four months later, after his original rehabilitation failed to go to plan.
"You could say I've been really, really lucky. I certainly dodged a bullet with that one."
The career-threatening setback has served to galvanise New Zealand's fastest ski racer, who made a fairytale return to the slalom starting-blocks in February.
Griffin is based in Queenstown, where he is part of the New Zealand alpine ski team training at Coronet Peak for the upcoming race season - the highlight of which is the inaugural Winter Games next month.
A confidence-boosting comeback to the pistes in the Northern Hemisphere has left Griffin in good shape and excited about upcoming back-to-back winters.
The aim for the former Ohakune man is a podium finish at the Winter Olympics in Vancouver next year.
First, he has a series of FIS Continental Cup races, such as the Winter Games race events, where he needs to card good results to improve his world ranking.
To automatically qualify for the Olympics, he needs to improve his ranking to within the top 80.
While he has beaten enough skiers inside the top 50 to know that on his day he can match some of the world's best, his previous best ranking was in the mid-100s.
During his injury-imposed lay-off, his ranking has slid further.
Realistically, while he is confident of qualifying for the 2010 Games, his long-term goals are more aligned towards the 2014 edition.
"My immediate goal is to make the automatic criteria. I feel I'm skiing better now than I was before my accident. I just need to convert my training times to racing."
He said he never questioned whether he would come back to the sport.
Dropping 11kg while locked in a brace, which extended from his waist to his neck, was depressing, but "there was always others to reassure me".
Top of that list has been his coach, Nils Coberger, a brother of New Zealand's only Winter Olympic medal winner, Annelise Coberger (silver medal in 1992 slalom).
Coberger had built his skiing technique "from the ground up", Griffin said.
"I had to start all over and that's been one of the best things. [After the accident] it was perfect to build up to be a ski racer again and get rid of all my bad habits."
Bad habits aside, Griffin is focused on maximum velocity when it comes to speeding down the slopes of Coronet Peak.
It is there he will contest the Winter Games super G and giant slalom in late August.
"I'm seeing a huge improvement every day in my skiing. I've got a plan in place and it's about training hard to get the results come race time."
Ben Griffin (22)
Alpine ski racer
Raised: Ohakune, Mt Ruapehu
NZ alpine ski team 2005-09
National Super G champion 2006, 2007
National grand slalom champion 2007
New Zealand alpine skier of the year 2009
