Bonus Territory

The other, lighter side of olympic team selection

Here we are…at the last burst of races before the Olympics. It’s an exciting time for many athletes. For the vets at the top of their games who punched their tickets early, it is a time to be strategic, to maintain strength and take care of the little things that will assure peak performance. For athletes who have surprised everyone, including themselves, by securing an Olympic spot, whatever comes it is all upside.

Whether named to the Olympic team or not, for athletes falling on the right or wrong side of discretion, it’s been stressful as hell; day after day of full combat, with every run a no-holds- barred, mano a mano, or womano a womano, fight for World Cup points.

A BACKPACK OF STRESS

I thought of this when Kyle Negomir spoke after his strong result in the Wengen Super G. When asked if it took some pressure off he said, “I wish I could say that it did. I think I’ll still wake up the next two days and feel sick to my stomach. I always thought when I was younger that, you know, Olympic years would be just exciting and you’re looking forward to it. It turns out, you’re just like, nervous as hell every day when you wake up. So I’m excited for this weekend to be over and to have that backpack lifted off a little bit. “

Going into the Olympic team selection, that backpack can feel like it’s filled with the weight of the world. Once it is lifted there is unbridled joy for some, crippling heartbreak for others and inevitably some (or a lot of) head scratching for all.

But at least the wait is over. Life will go on. And there are some epic races this weekend. They are chances to ski free; for many a chance to ski without a backpack for the first time this season. To you with the lighter loads: Fly be free!

TOTAL BONUS OR TOTAL BUMMER

It reminds me of the time leading up to my first Olympics, when many of us were rookies or near rookies with little experience on the World Cup before hitting the first of our inevitable plateaus. We were on the initial climb of the roller coaster and it was exhilarating. In a group interview with ABC my teammate Kristin Krone articulated it well. Making the Olympic team, if she did, would be a “total bonus.” For those of us rookies who did make it that year, it was just that.

Four years later, I would have a different experience, one familiar to athletes who come in with that backpack of expectations—from themselves or others.  By the time my young son lamented that I had not won a medal in my Olympic career, “not even a bronze?!?” I was long over that disappointment, but it took a while. You can read more about the prickly topic of not making the Olympic team here, and more about the badge of not winning a medal here. Suffice to say, there’s plenty of humility for all in this game.

To everyone bumming out about Olympic selections, or stressing out about winning a medal, this will all be over on February 22 and life will get back to normal. Until then you can tune out or get excited and lean into it.

THE NONEXISTENT ART OF PREDICTIONS

After team selection it’s on to predictions, always a fool’s errand. Picking Olympic medalists is as fruitless as “talent selection” and also as irresistible. We can’t help ourselves from entertaining the notion that there is some way to predict the outcome of this outdoor sport with countless variables in play day to day, run to run and gate to gate. On top of that, the Olympics are notoriously wacky, with success being more about trajectory than rank. It’s not unusual for athletes bubbling just beneath the top guns to put everything together—including luck—and to burst onto the podium. This wackiness knows no pattern but it does make sense. Fewer expectations mean fewer distractions, less pressure and more chance to turn all that Olympic hype and excitement into success.

These athletes are unburdened by expectations, but buoyed by upward momentum and 100 percent excitement on race day. Think Debbie Armstrong, Julia Mancuso, Ester Ledecka and on and on. Their successes—hard won as they were—are impossible to fully replicate. How different Ted Ligety’s surprise Combined gold in 2006 was from his seemingly preordained GS gold in Sochi eight years later. I think of the pressure “Mr. GS” as he was then known, must have felt at the top of that second run. Balancing that on the flip side, of course, were the intervening eight years of experience dealing with that pressure.

PICKING FAVORITES

If the favorites do prevail it will be more for their ability to treat the Olympics as a normal competition on a special day than their ability to deliver some out-of-body performance.  That’s the kind of performance that got Emma Aicher her Super G win in Taravisio. She called the win a “bonus” for simply executing her race plan and skiing the way she knew she could.

Then there are Vonn and Shiffrin. Both have so much big event experience—including success and heartbreak—that all bets are off, or should be. Normally, all the hype and predictions backfire on the favorites, a phenomenon known as the Sports Illustrated Cover Jinx. That feels irrelevant in the case of these two, considering the combination of deep experience and absolute freedom they bring into the gate.

It’s beyond rare. It’s unprecedented to have two favorites, GOATS in their disciplines, on the same team at the same Olympics at the absolute top of their games with nothing to prove. Both have already won everything there is to win, every flavor medal, every coveted title. Vonn already ended her career once and Shiffrin has already endured the worst case scenario in Olympic results. They both emerged from the ashes tougher and found their way back to the top.

If they don’t come through in Cortina? It means a little less cash in their bank accounts, but that’s about it. Their legacies—each very different from the other’s—remain intact. And if they do come through as predicted? It’s a total bonus.

Good luck to all the athletes in Italy. We’ll be watching!

If you want to read about Cortina’s 70 years of Olympic history check out this article in Skiing History (no paywall) I guarantee you’ll learn something reading it. I sure did writing it!