About this item

A daring and improbable story of Olympic gold from blue-collar origins. Every summer in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, Nick Baumgartner went to work pouring concrete, taking on the harsh physical conditions of the construction trade to support his professional snowboarding dreams come winter. To limit travel time while he trained for the Olympics an hour and a half away from home, he lived out of a crusty, old construction van, parked anywhere he could find a spot.. And in 2022, after 17 years of failure - all the crashes, injuries, and personal setbacks - he won Olympic gold at 40 years old, becoming the oldest Olympic snowboard medalist in history.. In this candid and affable memoir, Baumgartner details his journey from a one-stoplight town to the podium in Beijing.