Tompkins' last turn

At 41 years old, most athletes are well past their prime, especially Olympic-level competitors.

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Brian Wallace / Juneau Empire

Juneau's Joe Tompkins isn't like most athletes.

As a 19-year-old with the potential for a promising baseball career in his future, Tompkins lost the use of his legs in 1988 after a car accident. A couple of years of depression, drug and alcohol abuse followed before a friend had an idea: How about trying to ski?

"I was out playing wheelchair basketball with a guy, and he said, 'Hey, why don't you go skiing?' I had only skied three or four times in junior high, but he said to give it a shot," Tompkins recalled. "So I did it a couple of times and I just fell in love with it."

The Juneau Lions Club provided an avenue for Tompkins to learn how to race in Breckenridge, Colo., and he since has become one of the top mono-skiers in the world.

But it wasn't easy, Tompkins said.

"It was tough, but it was amazing," he said of his first tries on the slopes. "To me, the way I describe it to everybody is when you see one of these eagles around here just soaring, soaring up in the sky, that's how I felt. It was a freedom to me, and I was bummed out about losing my legs and baseball, so it was like a freedom.

"I didn't have to have anybody's help except for getting up from a couple of crashes," he continued. "I was on my own; I was soaring. It's like riding your bike for the first time as a kid, the wind in your hair; like, 'I can go here and no one's going to stop me.' It was huge for me."

Tompkins' first race was in 1998, about a decade after the accident. Then he picked up his first win.

"I didn't believe it. I didn't believe it, and all the guys who had been teaching me came up and said congratulations," he said of that first victory. "That really meant a lot, that people who teach you still want to follow you."

He won his first World Cup race in 1999 at Breckenridge Ski Resort on the same slopes where he honed his skills, and then went on to compete in the next two Paralympic games in Salt Lake City in 2002, and Torino, Italy, in 2006.

Tompkins said making the 2002 team was a high point in his life after he set the goal, and then put in all the work to realize that dream.

"I got a letter from the U.S. Olympic Committee and I didn't want to open it because I didn't want to know that I wasn't going," he said of whether he would be on the U.S. team or not. "Finally, I just opened it. I didn't want to become one of the best when I set these goals. I just wanted to ski race competitively across the world. I never thought I'd be winning races and World Cups and stuff like that."

In Torino, Tompkins held more than a one second lead - which is a "like a 12-point lead in the fourth quarter of a basketball game," he said - before he crashed in a turn.

"I don't like to turn," he chuckled. "I just like to go fast."

Tompkins said losing after holding such a big lead was another crushing disappointment.

"It took me a while to get over it," he said. "You get into a slump because you're training for four years for one race, and this one race is less than two minutes. I was disappointed because my mom, my sister and my friends were there, and I wanted to show them that I could do it. I knew I could do it."

Tompkins said he set new goals to help ease the sting.

"I was going to retire but I talked to my son, Donald, and I talked to my friends and they said to shoot for 2010 because it's close to home and more people can come," he said. "I'm older, but you don't use your legs in the mono-ski that I use, and that's one of the first things to go when you get older. I still have my upper body strength and my mind.

"I turned 40 last year, but I'm still beating young men," he continued. "If I wanted to go another four years - which I'm not going to - I could probably do it."

This February, Tompkins is shooting for a third straight - and final - trip to the Paralympics in nearby Vancouver.

"I have a few downhill races I need to qualify, and a Super-G," he said. "Downhills are the fastest for people who don't know. You get up to probably about 72 miles an hour, and my fastest isabout 73."

Tompkins hopes to know by February if he will make the team, and his next races, a slalom and giant slalom, are in three weeks in Breckenridge.

The possibility of competing so close to home in the Paralympics is a big motivater, Tompkins said.

"I have a lot more friends that want to show up and watch," he said. "My mom, Betty, has been traveling with me the last 14 years to come to a lot of my races, even in Austria or Switzerland. And I have sponsors, like Juneau Sportfishing, and they want to watch the race and what I'm doing. And my son travels with me. It's amazing, but it's going to be tough to say good-bye to a lot of people that you've met and have supported you.

"Or at least say, 'See ya later.'"

Though he plans to retire from competitive skiing, Tompkins said he'll never give up the slopes at Eaglecrest, which is one of his favorite places to ski in the entire world.

"Skiing in the powder up here, this is one of the top five," he said. "The ski hill is amazing. When you're riding up on top of that powder, it's a natural high that gives me chill bumps just talking about it.

"You can listen to tunes or whatever, and nobody can take that away."