It’s a big one, good luck!
blog one feb 5, 2020
The youth Olympic Games were incredible! So much happened in those two weeks and I learned so much that I feel it’s worth sharing.
The flight over to Europe was long. I tried to sleep, but it was so difficult. And from what I could tell my teammates George and Jeremiah didn’t get much sleep either. We arrived at the airport in Geneva early in the morning. As George and I were standing at baggage claim, people with cameras came up to us and started taking photos. At this point we hadn’t slept in over 24 hours and it was so overwhelming. But at the same time, I felt like a celebrity!
Because our flight landed early in the morning we had a whole day to spend before we could sleep. I think we ended up staying awake for 34 hours. It was brutal. By the time noon hit, I was ready to go to bed. After we dropped our skis off to get shuttled up to Villars, my ski bag, full of cloths, was no longer supported by skis and poles. As a result, I ended up dragging a very long, heavy, and akward bag from the pickup, to the train, from the train to the bus, from the bus to the bag drop off at the Olympic village.
Once we arrived at the Olympic village, we dropped off our bags and got accreditations. I forgot how awful my photo was. Anyways, we go back to get our bags and all these volunteers in matching purple and blue outfits cary our bags across a bridge to the entrance of the Vortex (what they called the Olympic village). At the entrance we met the Swiss guard. They sent our luggage through an x-ray machine (like the ones in the airport) and once again I got to drag my oblong orange bag across the village, into an elevator and around the balcony/ walkway until I go to the room. FINALLY!
Once we were all settled, we ate some lunch in the cafeteria and set off to do some exploring. We decided to go to the cathedral which was perched on top of the hill looking over Lausanne. Once we were done walking through old town, we took the metro back and headed over to the Gym. I got on an erg because I didn’t know what else to do. 30 minutes later we ran back, took showers and headed to dinner. After dinner I was ready to go to bed but it was smart to stay up for as long as possible so we could sleep through the night. So around 9 o’clock Jerimiah and I went out and played “Pin Quest” A game where you answer questions on your phone, and get pins, very similar to “pokimon-go”.
The next day we woke-up semi-rested and headed over to get on the train for our first day of skiing! The whole commute took about 2 hours. It was so pretty and after doing it twice a day, every day we sort of got used to the commute.
The night before the Individual there was the opening ceremony. That was crazy. Walking into the stadium I was so overwhelmed with emotion that I almost started crying! The US lead the parade of nations out onto the rink and up into the stands. The ceremony lasted for almost two hours and consisted of flying people, strange snow dancers, ice skaters, an orchestra, two high schoolers in a flying gondola singing the Swiss national anthem, and the president of Switzerland declaring the games to commence!
They finished the night with like seven confetti cannons. Wow.
After two days of training and course inspection it was time to race. And of course I had come down with a cold. So I took a bunch of Tylenol and Ibuprofen and some strange immune boosting pill. It worked. but not soon enough. I was still sick when I lined up to start, one row behind Grace, next to Laura Kovarova from Slovakia (the country where Skimo Stats is from).
Once they gun went off it was chaos! I was terrified. there were poles and skis everywhere and I was so overwhelmed that I sort of held back at the beginning. I should have been more aggressive. I got pushed to the back of the pack and was unable to make any moves. After the first climb (which took less than 8 minutes to do), I went flying down the hill trying to channel my inner maniac. It was steep and icy which made the decent, much like the accent very fast. There were moments in the first decent that had you skating up steep hills and there were also moments that had you flying off large rollers much like skier cross. At the transition I was in front of the Slovakian and behind a German. I made a quick transition and began to make my way up the hill towards the boot pack.
At the boot pack I was cheered on by tons of people with cowbells all shouting “GO USA”. I went through the woods, which were still pretty icy. Up into the kick turns I passed the girl from Germany and held her off all the way through the downhill. After a speedy transition I grabbed a quick energy goo and started up the first climb again for my second lap. By the time I had gotten to the 4th and final climb I was exhausted. The icy woods still hadn’t melted so I was sliding everywhere. I just had to keep telling myself that I had less than 500ft to go but even then the jet lag and sickness started to overwhelm me and both the German and Slovakian passed me on those last kick turns and no matter what I told myself, I couldn’t catch them. I finished in 20th, proud of myself for my efforts, but motivated to train harder.
The next couple days were rest days. During this time Grace went skiing. I mean this in the best most honoring way possible, but she is insane. George, Jeremiah and I took this time to rest. During those two days, we were able to become good friends with the Curlers who were our roommates. After a day of inspection, lots of UNO, and hoarding over 100 tiny chocolate bars, taken from the bowls in the cafeteria and cafe, it was time for the sprint.
We woke up early, got on the metro, got on another metro, got on a train, then a bus, and finally we got on the cable car that took us up to VILLARS. I was determined to have better results today. In the past I have been better at sprinting than racing longer distances so I hoped that this would go well. Because there were only 24 girls, everyone moved onto semi-finals after the time trials. Regardless, it was important to go fast on that first lap because you did not want to race the really good girls until you had to. In my time trial I was able to pass two girls on the course which was exciting and for a while my name was number one on the score board (that was before the Italians went). I placed 4th in my heat in the semi-finals meaning that I unfortunately did not move on. On the bright side I finished in 14th!
Additionally, I left my passport at the village and was super stressed out before my race. Joe (the team coach) thankfully was able to get a photo of it and I raced with his phone in my backpack. I highly recommend remembering your passport. Its pretty important.
The next day was the teams race. This was my favorite race. I loved that the whole team came together and was able to compete as one. Because SkiMo is an individual sport you rarely get opportunities to race in a setting like this which is what made it so special. The race consisted of the first climb of the individual and the sprint course. Grace went first. When she finished George and I could not believe what we just witnessed. After the start she was near the end of the pack, but that didn’t stop her and by the time she made it to the bottom, we were in 2nd place. Jeremiah had a strong first climb, he never gave up. He held our position so well. In the end he did get passed but you could tell he gave it everything.
Then it was my turn. I stood at the start waiting for Jeremiah and the moment he tagged me I was off. Channeling my inner Grace I went as fast as I could. Near the top of the first climb I could feel the lactic acid in my muscles. I started to slow down. But after the last kick turn I saw the transition zone and I bolted. I entered the transition zone ahead of the girl from France, made a quick transition and started to ski down. The downhill was terrifying. There were GS gates, but a couple of them had strange turns that threw you into the uneven chunky snow. There was this one turn at the end of the first decent where the race officials purposely dug a ditch next to, but you couldn’t go wide around it or you would hit the chunky snow so you just sort of fell into the ditch and popped back up. Once I got to the bottom, I quickly transitioned. At this point the girl from France had passed me. I put my skins back on and headed up the sprint course. It took a few strides to get my rhythm again but once I reached the first diamond I was back in action. Before I knew it I was at the bottom of the course, skating up to tag George.
Although the races were over, the experience was far from over. The next day we went for a run along the lake. It was spectacular. Where the mountains ended the water began immediately. Creating a spectacular landscape unlike anything I had ever seen before (except for all those times we saw it on the train but that doesn’t matter). I saw people rowing and sailing. I even saw a triple, a three person sculling boat (I assume thats what its called) I wouldn’t know I’ve never seen one before. After the run we went to the Olympic museum and got to learn the history of the Olympics and what the games really stand for. I found that above everything they stand for national unity.
During my time in the games I really got to experience that notion first had. During our time in the locker room/ tent before the races and during practice days I was able to talk to girls from all over the world. I became good friends with the Swiss girls Caroline Ulich and Thibe Deseyn, Kari Forseth from Norway, Ares Torra Gendrau from Spain, the two athletes Quzhen Suolang and Jingxuan Yu from china, Ema Chlepkova from Canada, Laura from Slovakia, Margot Ravinel one of the French athletes and Sophia Wessling and Antonia Niedermaier from Germany. In the village we traded our pins. When I heard about this concept I thought it would be no big deal, but I soon realized that trading pins, as silly as it sounds, was a huge deal. Through trading I was able to talk to so many cool people! I also was able to trade some of my USA gear for other nations clothing. Mostly hats. I now have a Norwegian hat, a Slovakian hat, and a Bulgarian hat.
Another cool thing that happened was that I was able to talk to Kikkan Randal an incredible athlete and role model for so many people.She is someone who I have looked up to for many years. She is also a sprinter and so I asked her how she trains for the sprint and she told me that she does everything. She trains for long distance, middle distance, and short distance and through that she is able to become a better sprinter. It was so cool se came out to watch the sprint race and George made it on her Instagram!
For a brief five hours I was the owner of a Swiss Suit. That was probably the proudest moment of my life. But the sizing wasn’t right and it would have been a waste of a suit so Thibe and I had to trade back. But regardless, I owned a Swiss suit!
Once we got back to the vortex we immediately went to a farewell party. It was pretty cool I traded my heavy US jacket for a sweet Germany one. The boy I trade with was pretty cute too. No big deal. I danced with Thebe, Caroline, and Ema. At one point Thomas and Robin Bussard joined in. Also no big deal. After that party sort of died we went to the Yodli cafe and played UNO. Once that got chaotic and everyone started speaking French I decided to go up to the boys room to see what everyone was doing.
Everyone was there. George, Jeremiah, the Curlers and the Figure Skaters. Oh and Young You the Korean national champion and YOG gold medalist. Because we were leaving at four in the mourning we decided to pull an all nighter. Around one we held the first, and last Team USA relay race around the vortex.
I got to race Jeffery. I was the Anchor, and on my lap there was a security guard on an electric scooter. I didn’t want to loose but I was also hesitant about getting in trouble. I thought I would be ok but as I kept running I got closer to and closer to him. and eventually I decided that I wanted to win, so I ran past the security guard who at this point was cruising on his scooter and our team finished in first! It was very slippery and as I came into the finish I slipped and fell. After I crossed through the finish line I looked across the vortex and there was a group of volunteers who had gathered to watch the race. Then, the security guard came up to me and gave me a high five! That was such a relief!
At this point we are all very exhausted.
4am came and we had to say goodbye to the Youth Olympic Games. It was truly one of the best experiences of my life and I’m so glad I was able to share it with so many people. I have made the best friends I could ever ask for and was able to lear so much from racing the best in the world. I hope to be back next year for the world championships with new motivation!
On the plane ride home I was watching Harry Potter and the seven year old next to me asked if she could watch too. About ten minutes into the movie I fell asleep and she took the earbud out of my ear and angled the computer on my tray table and finished watching the movie.
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