To be the very best in elite level sport, you can’t just be the best technically. That will only get you so far. You can’t just focus all your energy on being the strongest in the gym. We always say a sport is far more mental than it is technical based on how you handle the pressure and manage your expectations. But even if you have more confidence in your abilities than your peers you still need to have the skill level and more to back it up to win.
When I mentor young athletes, I draw the performer as a circle in the middle of a series of connecting cogs. If one cog starts to slow, the whole performers’ potential will drop. It doesn’t matter if you are the world’s best in 6 out of the 7 cogs. If that one cog is weaker, the whole system will underperform.
Ski racing is often seen as one of the world’s most technical sports. The level of skill required to ski at over 80mph, withstanding huge gravitational forces through undulating terrain and air is huge. The margins for victory are so minimal; there are frequent joint winners - the Sochi Olympic women downhill was won by both Tina Maze AND Dominic Gisin in 1 min 45.17 seconds - skiing 2.713 km. Crashes are frequent because athletes are surpassing their limits to find more speed.
But an injury is to be expected in such a dangerous sport, as I have experienced. Wikipedia correctly states that I have broken 49 bones in my body during my professional career; my neck was fused together after a break aged 11 and I still have a 12-inch metal nail down the bone marrow of my right leg. Being in good health and injury-free is imperative for racers to trust their body to reach and react at top speeds.
Physically it requires an array of expert skillsets - power, strength, coordination, agility and flexibility. The popular TV show Superstars was frequently won by ski racers across the world because of the vastness of strength they have across different physical tests.
Dedication to nutrition and manipulating your weight is also key to give you the best possible chance of skiing fast on a certain track. It reflects a continual test of dedication personally in order to perform at your optimum level.
Your equipment can make a vast difference between success and defeat. Like Formula 1, the elite have a technician who spends countless hours getting multiple skis ready. A downhill ski has an average of 100 hours of work, waxing, scraping, ski testing on repeat before it is deemed fast enough for a race. Your poles can change your aerodynamics from a position where you slice through the air, to bleeding seconds per run. Even the fit of your helmet can both help and hinder performance (the Deborah Companioni story is a great example of this).
I was fortunate to have worked with Sir Clive Woodward and his team when I was younger - I remember him saying, “Concentrate on measuring performance and winning will take care of itself”. We so often focus on the outcome, the dream of standing atop that podium with that golden medal…. That we forget to focus on the depth of inputs that need to click in place, for us to get there.
Ski racing is often seen as one of the world’s most technical sports. The level of skill required to ski at over 80mph, withstanding huge gravitational forces through undulating terrain and air is huge. The margins for victory are so minimal; there are frequent joint winners - the Sochi Olympic women downhill was won by both Tina Maze AND Dominic Gisin in 1 min 45.17 seconds - skiing 2.713 km. Crashes are frequent because athletes are surpassing their limits to find more speed.
But an injury is to be expected in such a dangerous sport, as I have experienced. Wikipedia correctly states that I have broken 49 bones in my body during my professional career; my neck was fused together after a break aged 11 and I still have a 12-inch metal nail down the bone marrow of my right leg. Being in good health and injury-free is imperative for racers to trust their body to reach and react at top speeds.
Physically it requires an array of expert skillsets - power, strength, coordination, agility and flexibility. The popular TV show Superstars was frequently won by ski racers across the world because of the vastness of strength they have across different physical tests.
Dedication to nutrition and manipulating your weight is also key to give you the best possible chance of skiing fast on a certain track. It reflects a continual test of dedication personally in order to perform at your optimum level.
Your equipment can make a vast difference between success and defeat. Like Formula 1, the elite have a technician who spends countless hours getting multiple skis ready. A downhill ski has an average of 100 hours of work, waxing, scraping, ski testing on repeat before it is deemed fast enough for a race. Your poles can change your aerodynamics from a position where you slice through the air, to bleeding seconds per run. Even the fit of your helmet can both help and hinder performance (the Deborah Companioni story is a great example of this).
I was fortunate to have worked with Sir Clive Woodward and his team when I was younger - I remember him saying, “Concentrate on measuring performance and winning will take care of itself”. We so often focus on the outcome, the dream of standing atop that podium with that golden medal…. That we forget to focus on the depth of inputs that need to click in place, for us to get there.
