As he prepared for another season of world-class competition, crash-prone Paralympic skier Andrew Kurka of Palmer said his goal wasn't to win races. It was to survive them intact.
Friday in the first World Cup sit-ski race of the season, he did both.
Two days after his 24th birthday, Kurka struck World Cup gold for the second time in his career. He won the first of two super-G races in Tignes, France, finishing the day with no physical damage.
Emerging unscathed from a day of racing is huge for Kurka, who has broken his back three times and has yet to finish an entire ski season without breaking a bone.
Last season, a broken leg kept him out of the Winter X Games. Two seasons ago, he broke a bone in his back during a training run for the Paralympic downhill race in Sochi, Russia.
In an interview with teamusa.org prior to his trip to France, Kurka discussed his many injuries — and his desire to make it through this season without any,
"I still don't know exactly what it takes to win without crashing, but that's what this year's about for me, figuring it out," Kurka told Team USA.
"I'm not really necessarily trying to win races this year, but rather I'm trying to stay very consistent, and I don't want to break bones. In years past, I've been gung-ho, really going for it. I usually end up either finishing really fast and winning or end up crashing. This year, I really want to find that consistency in my skiing and be able to finish a lot more races."
Kurka won Friday's first super-G in Tignes in 1 minute, 23.73, beating silver medalist Roman Rabi of Austria by .40 of a second.
In Friday's second super-G, he placed sixth in 1:26.10, well off the winning pace of 1:22.57 set by New Zealand's Corey Peters.
Kurka became partially paralyzed from the waist down at age 13, when he was in a four-wheeler accident at Jim Creek.
He won first World Cup race in January 2014 in British Columbia, and last season he bounced back from a broken femur to capture the bronze medal in super-G at the World Championships, also in British Columbia.