Carving Skills Win Through
I cannot remember when last I enjoyed ninety minutes of sport as much as Sunday lunchtime.
Born an Englishman, when feeling you've won the lottery of life proves elusive, at least we've lottery-funded Olympic sports that can come through and shake up the traditional big-hitting nations.
The Milano-Cortina Winter Games served up one such satisfying notch.
Hot on the heels of crashing the German's Skeleton party, mixed relay snowboard cross bore Gold.
The portents weren't promising. The French loading their teams. The Number One ranked Australians could taste it. Home ground Italians also fancied. And more besides.
GB's duo had already failed on the course in quite dramatic style. Charlotte Bankes, a former World Champ no less, for the second games was a favourite. But after breaking her collar bone last year, still with heavy strapping, could only muster 9th in her singles contest. Huw Nightingale fared worse, a lowly 23rd.
Yet somehow, when together they came through for Gold. While watching throughout you did sense they could medal though.
They built towards it. They seemed the only team with a plan. It was as if the rest were simply trying to hare down the track come what may.
What the Brits alone appeared to get, was that they went racing.
Sure, a lot went their way. Early crash-outs of favourites. A remarkable semi-final sequence where Charlotte's boot strapping was broken and swapped out as the field were kept waiting at the start gates (as summed up by commentary, 'a perfect distraction?'). And those Aussies never got going in the Final.
Yet their plan shone through. Huw up first, to keep out of trouble and in touch. Coming home almost level up front. Giving Charlotte every chance. Who then allowed the less experienced rival to belt out the traps and increase their lead over the 'disco section' of starting bumps. Before reeling her in through the section of turns with far greater racecraft to make a stunning pass and ultimately clear the final big jump well clear.
With medal freshly around her neck, instant reaction included;
'What's amazing is it's not like Huw did anything special, he just rode to his full potential. I was in that start gate knowing Australia were out. It was like, 'I'm going for gold'. 'We're not going for anything else, we're going for gold'. I knew [the Italian opponent slightly ahead at the top] was going to pull away a bit. But Huw putting me in that position of starting with her, I knew that then I was just going to draft [slipstream] and use my carving skills. And we found some solutions at the bottom as well to keep the speed. And I just focused on that finish line.'
As a 'goofy' rider myself, I certainly marveled at her carves. And her focus on her own game plan.
I also admired how she crossed the line. Matter-of-factly. Job done shrug. What's next? In stark contrast by the way to the speedskater who did s backwards so he could turn to taunt his vanquished field. Unlike that guy, Charlotte knows process rules o.k., and outcomes can become dangerous distractions; 'goals give you blinkers'.
Which is an indulgently glowing preamble to say we too must never get hung up so much on what competitors are doing. We also must run our own race. We have our equivalent to this winning approach. If others' strength is on the bumps, we must prevail on the curves. Trusting ourselves to find further solutions as we go. So long as the course of the deal has more of those, we can become garlanded too.