World Championship Aerials

As an athlete and an Olympian, my life is dominated by flipping and twisting on skis. I wake up thinking about aerials, eat meals, go to the gym, wax my skis, train, get injured and recover, lift weights, travel, compete, visualize, watch video etc, etc, etc … each day with the intention of doing even better jumps the next day. I know that in the big picture of life, a flip and a twist with skis on is not a truly "important" thing, but to me the sport represents much more than that. As an athlete what I truly desire is that each jump represents who I am, and the heart and soul that has gone into each year, each day and each hour of training that has encompassed my life. Some days that is more challenging than others.

In the past few weeks I went from the incredible experience in Deer Valley, Utah of standing on the podium in front of friends and family in my hometown, to the Olympic site in Vancouver, Canada where I lost a ski on a close to perfect landing, finishing in a disappointing 11th, to making an incorrect split second decision in the air and crashing on my stomach in Moscow in front of 35,000 cheering Russians and hobbling off the hill. At such a high level of performance, competing against the best in the world, success can sometimes be fleeting. To put it mildly, the sport is not easy and neither is life sometimes, and just when we think we are performing our best, we can quickly be humbled and learn once again, just how challenging fighting to be the best can be. I am certainly not the only competitor training as hard as possible and on some days, well, someone else will be at the top of the podium.

Who knows how things could have played out this year in Vancouver. Another 2009 season podium would have been amazing, but as I picked myself up from the ground, and turned and waved to a crowd cheering wildly in encouragement, I realized that this is simply sometimes part of the game. When playing a big game, we occasionally fall. So, I brushed off the snow, took my place in front of the TV cameras and smiled despite my disappointment.

As athletes, our passion can show the world many things, especially when we don't perform to our personal expectations. Some throw their skis in anger but we always have the option to hold ourselves steady and accept our performance with grace in hopes that the heart inside shows through. Who hasn't had the experience whether literal or metaphorical of picking ourselves up off the ground and going back for more? The Olympic spirit drives us toward success everyday, and my hope is that we as athletes can encourage others to do the same in their lives. I think that is why so many people are driven to watch the Olympic Games every four years. If life were easy, perhaps our passion would be diminished.

To many athletes, sport is about what comes out of our performances. Of course, we all want to win, we truly want each jump to be a representation of all of the hard work and training we have done and we want our performances to tell our stories, because really what's a good story if there's no one to tell it to?

So now, I've once again picked myself off the ground and in four days will head to Japan for the last big international competition of the season, The World Championships. I came home to Park City this week, limping from my crash in Moscow, and have been working diligently to improve movement and pain so that I can jump again, and I am quickly feeling back to normal. I am excited about the prospect of representing myself and my country at Worlds and know that I have the potential of coming home with a medal, but my true goal is to go to Japan and do the best jumps I can and to come home with another story to tell.

Thanks for reading and tune in for another blog very soon.

~Emily