Ambition Racing

It’s not about how many times you fall. It’s about how many times you get back up, dust yourself off…. and grab a cookie time… apparently 🤷🏻‍♂️🍪

Brilliant day down in NZ, we are making progress 💪💪💪

Wednesday Rewind ⏪⏪⏪

Hajfell World Juniors (2015 maybe?)

Beth has since gone onto help run British Cycling & Anna has an Olympic medal in Cycling!!!!! Paul sorts out the legalities of farm land, Alice is probably working for NASA by now & Kieran is still pretending to be Irish 😉 (and I’m still trying to get people fast enough to qualify for World Juniors).

This was actually the first time we’d been to WJC I think - not only as Ambition but for each of these guys. We’d managed to raise the bar across FIS team over the years before and had a number of WJC events during that period with large numbers of athletes qualifying. Paul Henderson was so far off the radar at the start of the season that he wasn’t on the national team, so needed to be sent a jacket (and put onto the team) at short notice for this. I think he’d popped a 26 point GS result in at Kravec a few weeks before and it was hard to argue against his level at that point. Anna would also have been a first year I believe which, is testament to the level that these guys and girls were coming out of u16 at during these years.

At this particular event, I seem to remember walking into a hotel foyer and there were about 100 teams (and 500 items of baggage) waiting to try and check in. It was carnage. Ski room one side of town, accreditations on the other, accommodation here / there and everywhere. That’s one of the things about major events - the first time or first few times you go, you are a little like “what the hell is going on here?” It’s completely overwhelming.

Top tip - always plan to have a few days each side in resort (we didn’t on this occasion 😅) but it was great fun nevertheless and I believe we got to witness Marco Schwarz go from 29th after the first run to take a slalom podium that year - maybe along with Henrik & AJ.

Another good flashback⚡️

Mindset Monday 🧠🧠🧠

(Missed Monday = a double post Wednesday 🤷🏻‍♂️)

This will seem like it has nothing to do with ski racing but go with it for a moment because; “Freeride is now an Olympic discipline”.

The reaction to this announcement for the 2030 Winter Olympics has been mixed from those involved in this sport. Some of the concerns ‘against’ turning Freeride into more of an organised sport, make a lot of sense, especially from a coaching perspective.

“I wanted to step away from organised teams. I fell in love with the freedom, the fun, the friendships.”

Why it’s interesting to the world of ski racing, is the set up of how this sport is coached and what being in the Olympics could mean in terms of a culture shift. Whenever you see these types of sports in action, the people involved are clearly creatives; they have flare, they are working things out as they go, chewing the fat with their peers between runs, discussing their next movements / lines / jumps. It would appear that much of the coaching comes from one another & the motivation comes from within (there’s far less of being told how many runs you need to complete or what movements to do next).

I’ve often looked across at these sessions and thought “this is such a cooler vibe / sport than ski racing”. In ski racing we tend to do things at the opposite end of the spectrum and ‘overcoach’. In many cases (although not all) the coaches are the driving force and, I wonder how many guys would ski a course all morning for fun & exploration, if left to their own devices?

It would be cool to run a session once in a while where coaches simply set up the challenge & then bu**er off to the background (on hand for safety reasons only) with athletes of any age / ability simply skiing the challenge in front of them and working it out as they go, through their own motivation, through trial and error, through questioning their peers & building relationships. Set up an area at the start or finish that encourages hanging out, discussion, even fun, and away you go - see where it takes you.

©️ Saalfelden Leogang
📷