Yvonne Visser's Travel Diary
January 26, 2006
Bobsleigh track paved with gold and anxiety
How an athlete prepares for the Olympics is a complicated, tried and tested
procedure. It is a common saying in elite sports that on race day, 80% of
the result is between the ears. In other words, the brain is a powerful tool.
Many of our daily habits are shown by our actions, and in the case of an
Olympic athlete, displayed to millions of people around the world.
In the sport of skeleton and bobsleigh, when we arrive for a World Cup race,
there is a large amount of preparation work -- some physical and a large portion
mental -- which must be complete before an athlete even attempts the first
run down the track. Since we move to a new track in a different country every
week, the track rules vary and each athlete and team must follow defined guidelines
and track times.
The athletes and coaches are allowed to walk on the ice in the bobsleigh
track during specified times and each athlete carries a notebook to be filled
with comments from the coach on the specific lines for entry and exit from
each portion of track to gain optimal speed.
Each profession has its experts and its own terminology, and in the sport
of skeleton they know ICE. They know how ice should sound, how ice should
feel and how ice should look. They say words like 'crunchy, slick, rounded,
chippy, moist and dry'.
These words don't sound complicated but bring an instant recognition. The
terminology can divulge: the moisture content of the ice; or whether the sled
should be driven closer to the walls.
Each corner has its own number or name, and is examined for smoothness, G-force,
enter and exit speed, and, of course, the fastest way to the bottom.
Some corners are wide and sweeping, some tight and very sharp on the entry
or exit which will throw the sled into the opposite wall if the athlete doesn't
drive the sled into a certain line. Before the first run, the athlete has
gone down the run perhaps 50 times in their head, visualizing perfect execution.
This is the most important tool the competitor can access, as they only have
six runs on each track before racing. Those with the best mental abilities
are generally the healthiest and on top of the result sheet.
Are the athletes scared before their first run down a new or difficult track?
When I ask World Cup winners (and Canada has seven of them), I am always
amazed at the respect they continually have for each track.
They all have trepidation just entering the start box.
All spend hours rehearsing, visualizing and watching the other sliders.
The common thread is that these athletes have to be prepared before hurdling
head-first with speeds up to 133 km/h on this track here in St. Moritz, the
only natural snow and ice track in the world.
When you watch the skeleton races from Turin on TV, you will see the athletes
doing sort of a dance with their bodies just before the start.
This is an exact representation of how they will steer the sled during the
run.
When you watch the actual run, it's not easy to see how they control the
sled, as the movements are subtle. As with any expert in the field of play,
it will look effortless and almost graceful.
Yvonne Visser is a Nanaimo massage therapist and former Olympian who
is part of the health care team with the Canadian Olympic Committee tending
to athletes in Alpine, snowboarding, skeleton, bobsleigh, and luge at the
2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy. She is currently on tour with the Canadian
skeleton Team in Latvia. Her column will appear every week in the month of
January.
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