John "The Arrow" Farrow scorches downhill at speeds that would see him pulled over and booked on any highway in Australia.
It's not just the breakneck pace, at times edging past 140 kilometres an hour, or the fact that he is piloting a small sled on a narrow ice covered half tube. It's also the immense body-crushing pressure he is under while hurtling headfirst down the runway.
"Your head is buried. Your body is pushed into the sled and everything is pushed down. Some of these corners are like five Gs and upwards for six or seven seconds and, if you can imagine, that's five times your body weight pushing down on you," Farrow said.
Farrow's chosen sport, Skeleton, is a bit like Formula 1- just with no machine and a lot less inbuilt safety. So why does the 31-year-old Sydney-sider put his body into such compromising situations?
"It feels like you are skimming over the top of the ice. I like to think of it as if you are flying - just over water like you see birds skim over," Farrow said.
But Farrow can't fly. He knows that better than most, after hitting the ground hard on so many occasions.
In a sport so dangerous, it is perhaps surprising that the injury that threatened to derail Farrow's Olympic aspirations came in a warm-up on a running track, rather than the icy domain he competes on.
Just three years out from Sochi, Farrow's athletic career looked like it was over after he ruptured three ligaments in his leg, tore his hamstring muscle off the bone, and fractured his tibia.
The response from his medical team required the help of organ donors and some brazen surgery.
"They screwed my hamstring back on the bone and because my ligaments were so damaged they had to use cadaver tendon parts... and they used a hamstring of an organ donor to wrap around my LCL twice to make it nice and tight. That was just the beginning of it," he said.
Despite the advanced medical procedures, peroneal nerve damage means his left foot is only at fifty percent functionality.
While sidelined from the sport as a "wounded athlete", Farrow watched the Paralympics in London and noticed how prosthesis assisted some of the competitors. So naturally, he built his own shell to help hold his wounded left foot into place while he is competing.
Farrow is finally feeling movement beginning to return to his injured foot. Naturally that has boosted his spirits,
"It shows that if you keep motivated and stay positive the body can heal itself... I just have to have faith that it is going to come good and keep with that determination and see how far I can take it in this sport," Farrow said.
"I am at a disadvantage now. But I have to keep coming back. I am sure everything will be sweet."
After suffering so much adversity, if Farrow is there crouched at the start line at the Olympics in Sochi, the hard work will be already behind him.
It will all be downhill from there and, with The Arrow's willpower, a golden bulls-eye wont be too far out of reach.
Athlete Bio
Name: John Farrow
Age: 31
Olympic Campaigns: One (Sochi)
Event: Skeleton (indivdiual men)
Lives: Sydney
Twitter: @johnfarrowAUS
http://sochi2014.olympics.com.au/athlete/john-farrow/media/blog
