Miracle In The Andes: 72 Days on the Mountain and My Long Trek Home

Golf fans will not forget the 39th Ryder Cup in a hurry. Staged at the Medinah Country Club just outside of Chicago, the 2012 event has already gone down as the most remarkable competition in its 85-year history. The American team had home advantage, and a golf course unapologetically set up to suit its own players. Supported by tens of thousands of loud and proud fans, the USA's star-studded line-up dominated the first two days and ended the Saturday with a seemingly unassailable 10-6 advantage. No away team had ever won the Ryder Cup from such an unpromising position. Sunday was singles day, traditionally the forte of American teams. The situation looked bleak, especially when European team member and number 1 golfer in the world, Rory McIlroy, very nearly missed his tee-off time. Yet slowly but surely, the European team - who had top-loaded their line-up in one last throw of the dice - started to turn the scoreboard blue. With inspirational captain Jose Maria Olazabal stiring European blood with thoughts of the late Ryder Cup magician Seve Ballesteros (whose silhouette was emblazoned on the players' sweaters and bags), the tide turned and the previously dominant American players started to crumble in the face of the onslaught. On 13 October 1972, the members of a top Uruguayan rugby team were flying over the Andes to play in Chile. Their plane crashed into a mountain and was stranded 11,000 feet up on an inhospitable glacier. Many died instantly in the crash, including the person sitting next to Nando, but others survived. They had almost no food or suitable equipment to withstand temperatures as low as -35C, and had to eat the bodies of their dead team-mates to survive. With the prospect only of a slow death, and no rescue likely, Nando and one of his friends set off on an impossible journey, walking and climbing for ten days in search of help. Finally, after 72 days, the 16 survivors wwere brought to safety.
Parrado's unique viewpoint brings a new perspective to this remarkable story. His hugely inspirational tale shows how the strength of the human spirit, the close bond of friendship and faith can make you achieve the impossible. He explains how, once you realise you must surely die, no risk becomes too great. Above all, Parrado came to understand that the opposite of death wasn't life but love. And it was love, for his waiting father and the mother and sister who dcied in the crash, that saw him home.Suddenly European players were holing miraculous putts to win holes out of the blue. Something very special was happening. When German Martin Kaymer sank his putt on the eighteenth green to clinch the point that retained the Ryder Cup, the most astonishing comeback in the event's long and distinuished history was complete. Miracle at Medinah is the compelling narrative of those amazing three days in Illinois, a fitting chronicle of an unbelievable sporting story.