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53. Jungle Jim Hunter

Posted in The Challenge, tagged , , , on July 12, 2010 | 4 Comments »

Jungle Jim Hunter was one of the original Crazy Canucks as a member of the Canadian alpine ski team in the early to mid seventies.  These days, besides being both a coach and mentor of young athletes he has a radio talk show that airs in Calgary every Saturday that you can also get on the station’s website at any time (http://www.fan960.com/).  It’s one of the very few programs that focuses on amateur sport and how to become both a better athlete and person and I’ve always found it to be very interesting and very valuable.

A few months ago now, Jim invited me on to the program to talk about skeleton and to discuss the upcoming Olympics that were only a few weeks away at the time.  We talked about a variety of topics, one of which was earning your performances.  Jim made the observation that too many young athletes these days “want to win by default.”  What he meant by that was there is a difference between deserving to win and winning because the competition had a bad day or was unlucky or perhaps had inferior conditions or equipment to work with.

Of course these factors are often beyond our control but the point is that the level of competition contributes to the level of satisfaction.  Very seasoned and very successful athletes often appreciate this relationship and want their competitors to be at their best to make it more meaningful and more satisfying should they prevail (2. Emulating Gregor Staehli).  Jim’s point was that too many young athletes don’t yet appreciate this relationship and would feel happy to win, even in the absence of the top competitors, hence the expression, “winning by default.”

To illustrate the other end of the spectrum, and what he feels athletes should aspire to, he told a story from when he was a teenager and just beginning his international career as a skier.  Because he wanted to be the best, he sought out the best to learn from and at the time that meant such iconic skiers as Franz Klammer, Jean-Claude Killy and Ingemar Stenmark to name a few.  

The next part was what I found particularly extraordinary and at the time I asked him to clarify more than once.  What he did was actually go to their home towns in the off season, and literally show up at their front door unannounced.  I asked him what he would say as some unknown teenager on the front door step of one of these giants of his sport.  He told me he would explain who he was and that he wanted to be a great skier and he asked them if he could interview them and try to learn from them what it takes.

Now apparently he did this on a number of occasions with many of the top skiers of his generation and incredibly he was welcomed in and given valuable information in almost every case.  I made him stick around after the radio program for a good 45 minutes so he could tell me more stories about these incredible unannounced visits.  The one that sums up his point the best, at least in my opinion, was when he came to knock on Ingemar Stenmark’s door.  I gather the man himself answered and after hearing Jim’s explanation as to why he was there, he asked him if he had his workout clothing with him.  After indicating that he did, he was told to come around back for a workout they were just beginning.

Jim was able to participate in the session and learned several training techniques the great Swedish champion was utilizing including intervals riding unicycles of various lengths uphill through pylons to build both strength and coordination at the same time.  At the end of the training, Jim asked Stenmark very simply, “why did you help me?”  His answer, which offers great insight into the way a champion of his stature thinks and is the antithesis of ‘winning by default’, was this:

“I want you to be your best so that if I win I can say I was the best.”

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29. Bonnie Blair Cruikshank – Personal Bests

Posted in The Challenge, tagged , on April 6, 2010 | 3 Comments »

Before the interview with Bonnie, I tried to do a little research about her beyond the usual records set and medals won.  I came across this video of a presentation she did back in 2003.  http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8642906093769490553#

In the vein of ‘emulating successful people’, I’ve tried to present a number of examples of people who are exceptional at what they do.  Bonnie retired in 1995 and there are those who may not consider her very “current”.  But to me what was so exciting about her presentation in the video is that what she’s talking about has nothing to do with technology, it has nothing to do with training methods, it has nothing to do with anything that may change from generation to generation, it has to do with basic concepts that are absolutely timeless and absolutely critical.

Her introduction begins with a video narrated by Charles Kuralt, “All I know”, said Bonnie Blair, “is I love skating.” It is a concept that is both very powerful and very necessary in order to be successful at whatever you do.  It’s too much hard work for it to seem like work – you must love what you do.  If you ask Bonnie why she succeeded she’ll talk about her love of the sport and her teammates and her competitiveness and her desire to beat the clock.

I asked her about one of the concepts that she spoke about in the video – the idea that the building blocks of one’s success is personal bests.  When you’re talking about personal bests, and specifically when Olympic champions talk about personal bests and how they are the real measuring stick, it can be a difficult concept to sell because of the fact that these same people appear to have dedicated their lives to winning gold medals.  Is it ultimately about winning that gold medal?  No.  It’s about trying with everything you’ve got, to win that gold medal.  And the way to get there is through personal bests.

When you watch a great champion like Bonnie Blair, it looks easy.  You forget about all the hard work that went into making that happen.  You might assume that Bonnie won every event she ever competed in.  I asked Bonnie about being the best and her first response was of course, “I wasn’t always!”

“I go back to Sarajevo, my first Olympic Games, and I only took part in the 500 but [I thought] if I get any where near the top ten – that’d be huge.  And I placed 8th!  If the video would have been on me, but on American tv they only show who gets a medal (laughing), you would have thought I’d won the race by watching me because I was so excited for how I did at that event, way better than I had ever expected.  I mean I was on top of the world!  I mean I was 8th place in the world!  Is that ever cool or what?  I mean you’ve got to look at it relative to you and the better you can be relative to you, the better you can be relative to the rest of the world.  But you can’t be better than the rest of the world if you can’t better yourself in the first place.”

“…if I have to look at pure athleticism, and goals of skating there at the games, that was my best race and I was 4th.  And I was just as proud of that 4thplace finish as I was of the gold medals.”

And just like in the video she talked about the 1500 meter race at her last Olympics.  In a very similar manner to how Clara Hughes described her results at the Sydney Olympics,  Bonnie’s result wasn’t considered “successful” in terms of how it was perceived by the media and/or the general public.  You get a different perspective if you talk to her about it.

“In Lillihammer, given the three races I took part in, the 500, the 1000 and the 1500, the 1500 was my best race.  It was a personal best by over a second, it was an American record, faster than I had ever gone ever, so to me that was like winning a gold medal even though it was 4th.  Now I don’t want to take away from the two gold medals that I won because those were thrilling and exciting races but if I have to look at pure athleticism, and goals of skating there at the games, that was my best race and I was 4th.  And I was just as proud of that 4th place finish as I was of the gold medals.”

At that point I asked her if she would go so far as to say it was her best race in terms of her personal satisfaction?  “Yes, yes,” was the answer.

“I look at that 1500 and that was the best I had and it was 4th and that was something that I was really proud of.  When I was in the media room and they were throwing microphones in front of me and they were saying, “aren’t you disappointed?” and, “you just missed a bronze!” and it wasn’t [disappointing for me].  I was still happy with what I did.”

Bonnie Blair Cruikshank is an extremely authentic woman.  She doesn’t in any way pretend to be something that she isn’t.  She’s one of the ones that gets it and it was a great thrill for me to interview Bonnie and hear first hand from her some of the great lessons sport has to offer.

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28. Bonnie Blair Cruikshank – Rivalries

Posted in The Challenge, tagged , on April 1, 2010 | 2 Comments »

Of all the articles on this site about becoming better at whatever it is you do, this is perhaps most relevant because of the frequency with which it seems to happen.  This is only anecdotal of course but throughout my competitive career and more recently as a coach I have seen many successful athletes who really get this concept and other less-successful athletes who struggle with it.  The mistake is to focus energy on aspects of your sport that are beyond your control – the most obvious being how the competition performs.  How the competition performs is beyond your control.  How you perform is the only thing that is totally within your control.  It’s such a basic concept but difficult for some to have an awareness of in practice.  Here’s what I found interviewing Bonnie.

*****

I spoke to two of Bonnie’s former teammates about her concept of team and what kind of a leader she was and I really got the feeling that she had a lot to do with her team’s dynamic.  When you’re a five time Olympic gold medalist (with a bronze as well), you are afforded certain luxuries like a suite at the hotel or a first class ticket on the airplane but Bonnie never went there.  She traveled with her team, she stayed with her team, she would never consider showing up for a training camp late or leaving early or doing anything that would set her apart from her teammates and I think they respected her for that.  The bottom line is that she didn’t see herself as anything more than any other member of the team.

When I asked Bonnie about how she looked at her competition, the response was exactly how I have found it to be with almost every one of the top Olympic athletes that I have asked the question.  There’s no animosity or negative emotion directed at the competition because your success lies predominantly in being able to perform to the best of your ability.  Worrying about what anyone else does is only a distraction.  It’s about getting the best performance out of yourself.

“I kind of looked at it as if the clock was my enemy and everybody else was on the ice but to each their own and may the best person win…”

“I kind of looked at it as if the clock was my enemy and everybody else was on the ice but to each their own and may the best person win and if I get beat in one race by somebody or a couple of people it isn’t going to make me hate them (laughing) or despise them or make me want to kill them the next time I got on the ice.  To me it was always about the clock.  That’s what I wanted to kill, that’s what I wanted to beat.”

“There were great friendships that you kinda make virtually all over the world and I think part of it is you create more of a friendly rivalry rather than a cut throat… you know, I was racing the clock!  And I was racing me.  I was my biggest cut throat [competition].”

“…you create more of a friendly rivalry rather than a cut throat… you know, I was racing the clock!  And I was racing me.  I was my biggest cut throat [competition].”

The drive and the intensity was there without question but those things were directed at aspects of her skating and training that could make a difference.  Myself having been a coach now for only four years, I’m already very much aware of the importance of and the challenge that it can be distinguishing between aspects of your sport that are within your control and will actually contribute to your success, and aspects that are beyond your control and thereby can only serve as a distraction away from how to make yourself a better competitor.  From our interview, it was clear to me that Bonnie knew this one well and had a team environment that made it easy.

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25. Sonny Davis – A New Challenge – Part 2

Posted in The Challenge, tagged , on March 17, 2010 | 5 Comments »

For years, as muscular dystrophy claimed more and more of my arms and legs, I didn’t understand what my purpose was. I knew only that what I had to do, I had to do fast, while my body could still handle it. I wanted to do something great, and for years I thought it was to represent Canada as a Paralympian. To reach that goal, I competed in dozens of races against hundreds of people. I wore the Maple Leaf with pride when I won, with sportsmanship when I lost, and when my chair was twisted out of shape under several other racers in Japan, I wore it as a badge of honour.

In Holland in 2006 at the World Championships I received the results of yet another re-classification. Team Canada’s head coaches would appeal the decision twice and after the second time I agreed that the decision was not likely to change and the matter was dropped.  I was now in the category with the big guns; faster, leaner, stronger, meaner. In a way I felt complemented. Everyone close to me knew there was no way I could hold up in a race with those old hats.  I would be left in the dust.  Ultimately I wouldn’t even get the chance – the Canadian roster was full in my new category and I was benched.  And so ends my Paralympic dream.

Two years later I realized I had a second dream. I spent time away from the track to contemplate a Canadian figure I have always admired: Terry Fox, a master of persistence. Driven until the day he died.  Whenever he was asked what kept him going on his quest to conquer cancer he would say, “I would just run to next telephone poll”.

I wore the Maple Leaf with pride when I won, with sportsmanship when I lost, and when my chair was twisted out of shape under several other racers in Japan, I wore it as a badge of honour.

He was a great inspiration to me.  So I am taking a moment at this time in my life to rebirth a childhood dream and accept a new challenge. In the spring of 2010, I will begin the journey across Canada in a wheelchair. I will take everything that has helped me, all the research I have done and continue to do, my experiences and life lessons, the music I wish to share and the love I have received thus far in my life and give it all back, so people out there suffering or clinging to an idea of themselves, trapped in a prison of their own design, will know that there is a better way.

I wish to inspire at least one person, to help them see their life as a gift and to give that gift to the world unabashed.  I will raise truth and awareness around Muscular Dystrophy; a name and a challenge that by embracing, I become free of.

In the spirit of Terry Fox and in the face of a wasting disease,

while I still can…

I will do more than I have ever done.

Please visit www.marathonoffreedom.com

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24. Sonny Davis – A New Challenge – Part 1

Posted in The Challenge, tagged , on March 15, 2010 | 3 Comments »

I’ve known Sonny Davis for over 10 years now and have always been impressed by him both personally and physically.  When I say physically, I mean both as an athlete and as an accomplished musician.  I thought this would be a perfect article to post during the Paralympics because Sonny for many years dedicated himself to trying to become a Paralympian.  I think it’s an illuminating article in terms of how hard it is to become a Paralympian and in terms of one of the challenges of Parlympic sport which is the classification of athletes.  I think it also hits on one of the themes of this blog which is why so many of us are still motivated to try new things and to try to get better at whatever it is we do – the challenge.  Remember this is only part 1 and I will post part 2 on Wednesday and if you want to read Sonny’s story in its entirety, visit www.marathonoffreedom.com.  Enjoy the article.

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Greetings. I go by Sonny Davis. A few years ago it was a personal dream of mine to become a Paralympian. At age 5 doctors diagnosed me with a neural muscular disorder called Charcot Marie Tooth disease, which is a form of Muscular Dystrophy. There is a degeneration of muscle and nerve present in my legs and my hands. I live a “walk and roll” lifestyle. Some days I feel good to walk and others I’ll take to the chair ergo: “Sonny and Chair”

In sport, due to my condition, classification has always been a grey area for me. During my competitive years I never once met an athlete with Muscular Dystrophy. As far as my coach and I knew, I was the only one. This was a blessing and a curse, for my abilities far outweighed my disabilities.  I have pushed wheelchair all my life. In spite of wasting and atrophy in my forearms and hands, I have developed great upper body strength and I can sit up soldier straight in a race chair. This is an important detail when classifying disabled athletes.

People are confused when they see me rolling in a chair one day and the next I’m up and walking with a cane. “It’s a miracle!” But to someone who is classifying me as an athlete and gauging my current stamina to my projected strength, this was, I imagine, a complete headache.  Wheelchair athletics is divided into classes of skill and ability, like boxing is divided into weight classes. I raced in a variety of classes throughout my racing career. If I race in too high a class, I start off with the leaders, but my weakness for sprinting kicks in and I quickly fall behind. Too low a class, and I don’t feel particularly sportsmanlike. After a couple of years’ racing experience, my coach and I knew exactly where I’d be most competitive. Any hopes of making it to the Beijing Paralympics would solely depend on being cleared for that class by the qualifying judges.

Japan was my very first marathon. The competition was unbelievable. Athletes from all over the globe showed up to this world-renowned event and the good news was that I was finally given the classification I so desired to achieve. Now I just had to put my head down, do my best and finish the race.

I knew the finish line wasn’t far. The volume of the crowd peaked as I entered the stadium. Only three racers in my class were in front of me now. They worked together and took turns drafting each other the whole way. I had successfully pursued them and was about to receive the thrill of victory. The track was fast and I was determined to finish strong. Four hundred meters to go, feeling stronger than ever, I was now gaining speed to the right of the trio; I would overtake them on the first turn, or so I thought.

Suddenly, my front wheel jerked sharply to the side steering me right into the leader of the trio. Before I knew it we were all crashing and tumbling over one another. We must have looked like a pile of dying transformers.  Damage sustained: right tire and fender bent totally out of shape, and just like that, it was over…but I wouldn’t accept that. I had come this far, the only thing left to do was push. I could hear the swell of the crowd, and could feel that some of those cheers were for me.

We must have looked like a pile of dying transformers.

Athletes zoomed by me, finishing with ease and finesse. I had lost my speed, my rank, even the chair I was sitting in but not my determination. The finish line wasn’t beyond me, it wasn’t out of reach. With every push, I was a few feet closer. I could just hear the crowd yelling “GO! KEEP GOING!”

I accepted my fate, and the fact that thousands of eyes just saw me transcend embarrassment. But my poor, damaged chair had got me this far, I would let it end the race with dignity… or maybe it was my own dignity at stake. Then I realize I’m not alone, I am joined by a fellow Canadian, Dana Halvorson. He generously matched my pace, and for the last 50 meters, we rode side by side. Head held high, I crossed the finish line with my countryman.

End of Part 1.

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19. Jon Montgomery vs. Martins Dukurs

Posted in The Challenge, tagged , on February 20, 2010 | 19 Comments »

Two nights ago I had a front row seat to one of the most incredible races I’ve ever seen.  After the first two heats of the men’s skeleton it became clear that we were watching a two-horse race between Jon Montgomery of Canada and Martins Dukurs of Latvia, a man who, as Jon says, is the World Cup overall champion “for a reason.”

The race began with Martins smashing the track record and showing that he was not intimidated in the least by Jon’s dominance in training.  After Jon’s first run which was 28 hundredths of a second slower than Martins’, you got the first glimpse as to why he is such an exceptional athlete.  When asked what he was thinking when he saw the time of Martins’ first run, his reply was quite simply that he was unaware of it until he had finished his own run and was standing at the finish dock.  As a coach I’ll preface this point by saying it’s not nearly as easy as it sounds, but the great ones are totally focused on what they have to do and nothing else.

When asked what he was thinking when he saw the time of Martins’ first run, his reply was quite simply that he was unaware of it until he had finished his own run and was standing at the finish dock.

On the second run of the event, Jon came back at Martins and actually cut into his lead, albeit by only two hundredths of a second.  In the first run of day two, Martins again came down the track first and broke the track record.  This time Jon responded immediately and decisively by reclaiming the record and cutting in to the lead by another eight hundredths, leaving the gap at 0.18 seconds with one run remaining.

Jon was interviewed after his third heat and mentioned that he had just been talking to Martins and had joked that it was going to take more than four heats for him to catch up at the rate he was going.  The light-hearted banter was punctuated with a shot of the two rivals shaking hands on the truck waiting to head back to the top of the track.  There’s no animosity between these great competitors.  There is respect.

In the words of the former Crazy Canuck, Jungle Jim Hunter, “too many athletes want to win by default,” as opposed to earning their results.  There were in fact two examples of this in the skeleton competition.  The first happened after day one in the women’s event when a protest was filed against race leader (and eventual winner) Amy Williams of Great Britain.  The claim was that Amy had somehow added a wind fairing to her helmet but the protest was quickly rejected as the helmet was commercially available to all competitors as is required by the rules.

The other instance had heartbreaking consequences for Canadian Mike Douglas.  Contrary to what was originally reported, Mike’s sled was in fact in the secure area on time as required by the rules.  The issue was that the sled still had the protective guards covering the runners.  I can’t tell you how many times as both an athlete and now coach that I have witnessed competitors and coaches alike remove the runner guards from an opponent’s sled when the deadline loomed.  That just didn’t happen here.  Amy and Mike were both vying for medals, and the sad truth is that their ranking played a role in both instances.  Trying to eliminate the competition by catching them on some technicality defines winning by default.

Jon Montgomery in the final heat had yet another near perfect run and Martins Dukurs made a few small errors that gave the win to Jon by seven hundredths of a second.  After being behind for almost six kilometers of racing, Jon overtook the Latvian somewhere in the middle of the final curve.

These athletes have no need for winning by default, in fact they welcome the challenge.  Martins Dukurs having had an incredible race markedly increases the value of Jon’s medal – maybe not to the public at large, but to Jon.  If he won gold because Martins had an equipment failure, it wouldn’t have meant what it does.  After the race Jon stated that with his final run he knew he had done his best and if it wasn’t good enough to win then he’d wear the silver medal “with a smile on [his] face.”  Jon even went so far as to acknowledge his home track advantage over the Latvian: “for Martins to show up with six training runs and have this kind of performance is huge.”

Congratulations to both Jon and Martins for showing that great performances are preceded by great attitudes.  That was one of the all-time best races (not just skeleton races, but races) that I’ve ever seen.

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Follow-up…

Posted in The Challenge, tagged , on February 17, 2010 | 4 Comments »

Today’s post is a follow-up to the Jennifer’s Heil article about facing a great challenge.  I just wanted to say something about someone I have admired for years who didn’t quite have the race so many of us were hoping he would.  Jeremy Wotherspoon also faced a great challenge in the men’s 500 meters speed skating event trying to come back from a terrible crash last year that left his arm broken in several places and with obvious nerve damage.  One thing that I really enjoyed seeing was the interview with Dan Jansen before the event in which he said that Jeremy didn’t need to win a medal in Vancouver to be remembered as probably the greatest sprint speed skater of all time – really powerful stuff coming from another one of the all-time greats.

Here is a quote for you Jeremy.  It’s an old one, but it’s a good one.

“It’s not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or when the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions and spends himself in a worth cause; who at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who at the worst if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory or defeat.”

Theodore Roosevelt

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18. Here’s To Jennifer Heil

Posted in The Challenge, tagged , on February 14, 2010 | 9 Comments »

Last night at Cypress Mountain, Jennifer Heil won a silver medal in the moguls competition.  I started to write this yesterday morning before the event…

If Jennifer Heil wins a gold medal today and becomes the first Canadian to win gold on home soil, keep this in mind:  celebrate the fact that the drought is over by all means, but don’t reduce her accomplishment to a trivia question.  Winning a gold medal once is a rare feat worth celebrating.  To be in a position to do that again four years later is a rare feat amongst Olympic gold medalists!

There has been a lot made of the fact that no Canadian won gold at the previous two Olympics held in Canada.  If Jen Heil wins, yes she’ll be the first, but the real achievement here is being right at the top of the world in an individual event for that length of time.   It’s an incredible achievement, let alone it’s a sport that beats the living tar out of your knees and anything else you might happen to land on in any given run.  Celebrate it for what it is: an incredibly rare feat amongst the elite of elite athletes…

Well, it didn’t quite happen last night but what an amazing performance.  In all honesty I can’t think of an athlete who faced more pressure over the last several months.  Think about it – did you ever see an interview or read an article about her that didn’t also refer to the first Canadian gold on home soil?  I even heard her referred to as the one “expected” to win it!  How would you like to be in that position?  Not just expected to do well, but to win gold!  And not just any gold, a first in Canadian history!

I’ve been nothing but impressed by Jen Heil, every time I’ve heard her interviewed and every time I’ve watched her ski.  If you ask her if she minds the pressure, she’ll say that’s the way she likes it!  Don’t kid yourself, it’s an immense amount of pressure, and when you’re “expected” to win the gold it’s an unfair amount if you ask me, but she took it on with a smile every time it was mentioned.

If the true joy of sport lies in facing a great challenge, then she’s done it a way most of us only wish we could.

I became an even bigger fan of hers because of her performance last night.  Under the weight of all that expectation, when it mattered the most, she threw down a beauty.  Maybe I’m not a moguls judge, but to my eye her run was pretty close to perfect.  In other words she did what every athlete dreams of doing – having a truly great performance when it matters most.  If the real joy of sport lies in facing a great challenge, then she’s done it in a way most of us only wish we could.  Losing to another talented athlete who, like Jen, had a great day, bears no shame at all.  Congratulations Jen!  You make us proud.

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17. Dealing With The Pressure – Part 2

Posted in The Challenge, tagged , on February 10, 2010 | 1 Comment »

There are those who will say these athletes “choked”.  To say that someone folded under pressure is really easy to do from the sidelines but in this case, 29 athletes who were each the best their nations had to offer couldn’t all be choking.  The reality is that it was an extremely difficult, icy, steep course that ended Olympic dreams in some cases only moments out of the starting gate.  Referring to an athlete as being unable to handle the pressure in many cases is simply unjustified.  If none of the athletes felt any pressure, perhaps fewer than 29 would have been out after the first run but I suspect the times would have been slower as well.

Realistically, for only a few of the top ranked athletes, the race is about having a good solid race and doing what you’ve consistently done before because that’s what gets you on the podium.  For almost everyone else, it’s about taking your best shot, or crash trying.  The mentality for many athletes at an Olympics is that fourth and last are essentially the same – no medal.  You better give it a good go.  The last thing you want to do is finish fourth and wish you had been slightly more aggressive.  And the reality is that a lot of people are going to crash or miss a gate and there’s no shame in it.  If they fail trying to be better than they’ve ever been before, don’t assume it was because of the pressure.

There are also other factors that are a part of skiing that athletes of most other sports never have to deal with.  For example, obviously it’s impossible to control the weather, so on a regular basis you have races that are unfairly impacted by factors beyond the athlete’s control.  Races are postponed only if the athlete’s safety is at risk.  If the conditions are merely unfair because of a change in temperature or because it starts or stops snowing, the race goes on.  This is just the reality of outdoor sports.

Erik Guay already has a great deal of experience with how to deal with these factors and how to deal with pressure.  You never know if it’s going to be enough to win an Olympic medal (he’s got a great chance) but the fact remains that if one of his strategies for dealing with that pressure is to forget about it every once in a while, we should let him.  Like it or not, every reporter that has talked to him since the season after the Torino Games, has more than likely put each of his performances in to the context of the 2010 Olympics.  Erik Guay, quite aside from any prediction that any official might make about medal counts is already in a pressure cooker.  It’s very likely that his greatest chance to stand on an Olympic podium will rest in his ability to block out everyone and everything other than himself and the race course at the one moment he needs to be great.  In my opinion, in addition to everything else he’s facing, if he thinks that for him it would be better if winning in Whistler wasn’t pointed out to him as often…   maybe we could cut him some slack!

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16. Dealing With The Pressure – Part 1

Posted in The Challenge, tagged on February 8, 2010 | 3 Comments »

“There would be no triumph in success if there had been no hazard in failure.”    -Cardinal Newman

Today’s post is a little bit of a departure from what I’ve typically written about on this blog.  It’s about dealing with pressure and how that’s such a big part of an Olympic performance.  I have talked a lot previously about how the real reward in sport lies in facing a great challenge.  For most sports, the Olympics are the greatest possible challenge and as such carry with it the greatest potential for both joy and heartbreak.  Of course it is the very same risk of failure that makes the challenge worthwhile in the first place.

I thought it was appropriate given we’re only a few days away from the Opening Ceremonies of the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, to talk about that risk and the pressure facing our athletes because I think it’s something that very few people can really appreciate just watching on television.  This is something that I wrote about a year ago now but it’s very relevant to what we’re about to experience (first hand if you’re lucky) in Vancouver and Whistler.

*****

In late 2008, I saw an episode of a TSN program called The Reporters.  In this particular episode they were referring to a comment that alpine skier Erik Guay had made.  The comment related to the fact that Olympic organizers were calling for an overall first place finish for Canada at the Vancouver / Whistler Games and how this “added pressure to the athletes”.  One of the reporters gave a sarcastic “Aaaaaaaaaa gee, that’s too bad,” offering no sympathy for the trials the skier will undoubtedly face.  There will be pressure – a great deal of pressure, for any athlete let alone Canadians as the host nation with an anticipated media coverage that will eclipse any previous amount of domestic exposure for amateur sport.  I just don’t think that “you better be prepared for pressure or get out,” shows any understanding of what Erik Guay or any Olympian for that matter is facing.

Erik Guay on the other hand, has about a minute and a half, once every four years in which he essentially has to be perfect.

To use hockey as a reference point, how many mistakes can you make over a seven game playoff series?  Even the best players on the best teams occasionally get caught out of position, fail to clear the puck out of their zone or flub either making or receiving a pass.  Erik Guay on the other hand, has about a minute and a half, once every four years in which he essentially has to be perfect.  And if he has staying power he’ll get to try for a medal maybe two or three times in a career but realistically if he stays at the top for two attempts he’s already defying the odds.

With skiing especially, the fact is, it’s just too easy to make a mistake.  For me the ultimate example of this truth was the first heat of the slalom event at the Torino Olympics.  Athlete after athlete missed gates or crashed or took themselves out of the running in one way or another.  By the end of the first run, 29 athletes either did not finish or were disqualified including the Italian World Cup leader Giorgio Rocca.  Rocca was actually given the honour of reading the Athlete’s Oath in his native Italy and had won five consecutive World Cup slalom races that season leading up to the Games only to straddle the second gate out of start.  Watching this man’s Olympic dream end literally four seconds after it began was heartbreaking.

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