Blog: Sochi Preparation Starts Now

 

By Danny Holdcroft, EIS British Skeleton Lead of Science & Conditioning - 03.03.10

My experience of the Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver has barely had time to sink in but already attention is turning to Sochi in four years time as after a few days off I find myself back at Lake Placid with my two Olympic Ice Coach colleagues for a three week training camp.  Whilst it’s right that we enjoy Amy Williams’s success, we should also realise that now we have reached the top of the pyramid for our sport as Olympic Champions, we must now refocus and ensure we stay there. 

As strange as it may sound at this moment in time it is crucial we push on. Twelve months ago we embarked on a joint partnership with UK Sport bringing together a select group from the Pitch2Podium and Girls4Gold talent programmes, this camp will see the conclusion of their first year and the results thus far offer real promise and I look forward to spending the next three weeks here with the athletes who will hopefully push the British Skeleton programme on to more success in the future.

Lake Placid is quickly becoming a second home, and it was here that my second Olympic Games experience (I was also in Turin) began as the British Skeleton athletes and support team arrived here some four weeks ago for our final pre games training camp.

The Village which hosted the 1932 and 1980 Winter Games offer us very familiar surroundings. It was only twelve months ago that Amy and Adam Pengilly were winning World Championship Silver medals here. This familiarity  and what felt like  very much are own  normal working environment meant we were able to put the finishing touches to the athletes preparation in a low key way , before heading on to join the Team GB holding camp in Calgary for four days which I have to say was excellently run by the BOA. Many thanks must go to Mike Hay and his team who went out of their way for all team GB athletes and coaches to make sure things were of the highest level, before we finally entered Whistler on 11th February.

The first few days in Whistler were generally spent settling into the Olympic environment, an environment that is hard to explain. From the outside you get the feeling of how huge the Olympics are with media hype and TV coverage, but the inside for me feels very different.  I find that it feels very much the same as many other competitions, only that there are many more athletes and support teams from other sports at the same venue with you. Maybe this is simply down to a combination of good preparation and keeping to what you know, what we’ve come to term the tick box mentality, and again amazing support from all Team GB HQ staff.

From the moment we left Lake Placid, passing through Calgary and on to Whistler we wanted to try and make things as normal as possible for the athletes. Many of them attended the opening ceremony of course, but from then on things fell into a fairly normal pattern, with the athletes getting their first runs on the ice on the Monday after we arrived. 

Amy’s achievement in winning the gold medal in the women’s Skeleton was absolutely phenomenal and hasn’t really sunk in for many of us yet. Personally she had great disappointment in missing out in Turin 4 years ago, but the manner in which she has dedicated herself to the sport in the past four years with her tireless work ethic is simply superb and the gold medal is something that she deserves, that last day of sliding is something that I will never forget.

As I think she has said in many of her interviews since, our main focus with her was just to set no pressure on her performance and just allow her to go out, give her best, tick her boxes and enjoy it. She certainly achieved that and we are all delighted for her and the Skeleton programme. These are the results which we work so hard for and it’s something that can never be taken away from Amy or any of those who supported her.

Unfortunately the coaches and myself didn’t have much time to celebrate with her but we were there just there long enough to see her pick up her medal, before heading off for a few days recuperation in Cuba before arriving back here in Lake Placid.

So here I am, the next chapter has already started, Sochi 2014 here we come...

Photography © Getty Images