I have developed this ambition to become a bob skeleton
athlete or slider if you know the lingo (I'm trying!). I have been aware of the
sport since I watched Amy Williams win Olympic gold in Vancouver in 2010 when I
was doing my placement at the university of baths high performance center.
There was a lot of interest as that is where Amy lived and trained. So I shed a
little tear (I always cry when people get medals) and thought how amazing
winning a gold medal was but had no desire to try that myself despite knowing
Amy had come from an athletics background.
2014: Sochi Olympics.
I was more aware of this Olympics because I was now
working in high performance sport in Scotland where we have a good reputation
for curling in particular. So the whole office were pretty into Sochi. I'd
heard a bit about Lizzy Yarnold through the media so I knew she had a decent
chance based on her form and previous races. I also knew that she was a product
of Girls4Gold a talent ID drive that I'd also done and made the initial
skeleton tests but gotten no further. Then she won gold. The second consecutive
British woman to win a skeleton medal. They know what they are doing down in
Bath. In all the post games media I came across power2podium; the newest British
skeleton talent ID drive and remembered thinking I could have a shot at that.
So encouraged by my then boyfriend (now ex) I
applied and went to phase 1. I LOVED phase one!! It was all speed and power
testing and really favoured my strengths coming from a long jump background.
Onto phase 2.... And Bath. Probably my favourite city in the UK. Fewer girls
but they were all athletic and physically not dissimilar to me. How do you
stand out against that? What are the skeleton team looking for? No one provided
these answers so time to just get on with it. The best part was the push track;
a 50-60m downhill track with a sled on runners and a bungee that let you
practice the push start away from ice. Pretty daunting!! However it was a lot
of fun and no one wanted to leave. The challenge was running with one arm and
bent over (sounds obvious) but it is really weird and hard to coordinate and
keep balanced. Anyway practice we did and we all improved and got faster with
no major incidents (cause it is pretty dangerous if you mess it up).
Post phase 2 ice bath because I had an athletics comp the next day!
Next up a nervous wait to hear about phase 3... I got
through. I was more relieved and pleased than I expected so a sign that I was
beginning to really want this. Despite all the chat that you're away from home
6 months of the year, become a human pin ball, live in cramped conditions, are
broke for the most part I am relishing the chance to be a full time athlete. It
won't happen for me in athletics, money is hard to come by there. This is the
opportunity.
Yesterday and today was phase 3. It really feels make or
break now, no one wants to get rejected at this stage cause phase 4 is ice time
baby!! It feels really close and I have committed time and money to this cause
now so I'll be gutted if I don't make it.
We had a lot of things to do over the past two days. We
did two push start sessions on the track, an eye test, team building activity,
psychology assessment, sled workshop and performance lifestyle. I was loving
all the sport science :) With all that on the table it is hard to guess what
will make or break it for any one athlete. I suspect it is the push track.
Which is a shame because I didn't feel I performed to the best of my ability in
today's session. Whilst a lot of girls stepped up I felt that I regressed,
having a few dodgy runs (wrecking my spikes in the process). Luckily I ended on
two good runs however I'm wishing that they had been my first runs so I could
have built on them. But hey ho what can I do now but wait? I believe in myself
as an athlete and want to test myself further in this sport, particularly on
the ice. So the waits begins. I'll update in two weeks time...for now it's back
to the tartan track!
No comments:
Post a Comment