Los Angeles Times

Life of US Alpine skier has been an uphill battle

The diagnosis arrived the day before Thomas Walsh left for a ski academy in Vermont.

For months, the rising star on the U.S. junior skiing circuit dismissed the ache in his right hip. After all, a snow-covered future beckoned. Walsh, then 14, planned to follow the example of Mikaela Shiffrin, his close friend since preschool in Vail, Colo., and move East to focus on skiing. They expected to compete in the Winter Olympics one day.

But doctors discovered a rare bone and soft tissue cancer, Ewing's sarcoma, had invaded Walsh's pelvis and spread to his lungs. The odds for survival were so

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