MRS PRESIDENT SAYS…
THE GIRL WHO FAILED, CAN ALSO FLY
The Ski Club’s honorary President, Chemmy Alcott, gives us her take on the Beijing Winter Olympics
I loved the Olympics. As a competitor first, I love being amongst a fortnight of mind-blowing magic where the world seems to stop and actually register the excitement and entertainment of winter sport. Putting yourself out there, doing your very best despite the nauseating nerves, the weight of expectation of a nation. At moments the Games brought me my highest of highs: at Turin 2006, I had a spectacular downhill run in really difficult conditions to ultimately finish 11th; although I was right up there until the last split. And then the lows: the very next day I was disqualified from my favoured event, the combined, because my slalom ski was 0.2mm too narrow in the middle. My heart broke. But, because I wasn’t racing the next day, I enjoyed a rare meal with my whole family that evening. It proved to be the last meal we ever had together as my mother died shortly afterwards. That Olympics in Italy epitomised the rollercoaster that any athlete feels at the Olympic Games.
I also love the Olympics as an expert, a pundit, a sports fan. I am hooked from the moment the opening ceremony launches into life to the emotional end when the flame fades into oblivion. I pray that those who have sacrificed their all to be their best can perform to the level they hope - not the level we expect, but the level they can achieve to progress their sport. Equally, I am there to listen when things don’t go to plan; when those we predict glory for face disaster and disappointment instead. Those are the stories that keep me watching.
It is inevitable that some Olympic athletes will win the biggest accolade in their sport, leaving the Games with hard-won and precious medals. Most won’t. As Mikaela Shiffrin tweeted after the Games: “The girl who failed… could also fly.” Listening to our athletes give their reasoning for being amongst the majority, which in Beijing seemed to be more honest than ever before, is the inspiration we all need to pick ourselves up when we face our hurdles. Because if these top athletes can do it, with the weight of the world on their shoulders, then so can we.
The world is a different place to four years ago during the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics. We have evolved together. If you think Team GB failed at the Winter Olympics because they won ‘only’ two (incredibly marvellous) medals, then you and I sing from a different sheet. In my eyes, competing against nations who practised their sport to perfection sport daily on their own glaciers during the pandemic, whilst our athletes stayed at home and visualised the snowin their home gyms, makes us winners, medals or not.
