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EVENTS
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Bread and butter sandwiches
Skeleton athlete Chris Soule, 28, is training for the 2002 Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City. Soule, who won the first round of U.S. national team selection races back in October, is a two-time national champion (1997, 2000) and finished second on the 2000 World Cup circuit. The 6-0 native of Trumbull, Conn. spent time as a stunt player on the film G.I. Jane and currently works as a research assistant. Check out Soule's diary on CNNSI.com as he trains for the Olympics.
May 15, 2001
I arrived at the Olympic Training Center in Lake Placid, NY late this afternoon. I made the trip from my home in San Francisco to the East Coast for a friend's wedding, which made for the perfect opportunity to get up to the OTC for a week of training with my strength and conditioning coach, Kevin Ebel. Kevin has set up weight lifting programs for me and some of the other skeleton athletes. I have always had a pretty strict training regimen for skeleton. I have worked with guys who have trained in track, football, rugby, and who were part of the military, so I have seen a lot of different programs. Throughout the years I have been able to tailor my program to fit my needs for skeleton. A lot of strength and speed is required to push the 70+ pound sled 30 to 40 meters at the start before lunging onto the sled. This makes weight training a very important part of my program. I also have to train for speed like a sprinter, which calls for plyometric drills and lots of sprints at the track.
I got to relax a bit today, so I went outside of town to a couple of places that I used to visit while I was living here 6 years ago. I headed into Keene, NY and down to a little river that my friends and I used to go to on a hot summer's day to cool down. Being in Lake Placid brings back a lot of memories from when I first moved up here and started in the sport of skeleton. I thought I'd lend you some insight into the history of the sport through some of my experiences from the early years of my sliding career. Nine years ago, when I started sliding there was not the foundation for skeleton that there is now. The sport was always very competitive and was very popular in Europe, but most of the U.S. athletes who competed had to make their own way by raising money to travel and train. This made racing and traveling a bit more challenging, but it definitely weeded out the athletes who didn't want it as much. We didn't have any funding to help with coaching and other programs, so our coaches and athletes paid their own way to World events. Within the past five years the sport has been transformed. Now there are formal programs in place that help the athletes maximize their potential. The U.S. team has sprint and strength coaches, the U.S. Sports Science team, and the best head coach anyone could ask for, Ryan Davenport. Ryan is a two time skeleton World Champion and the most successful sled builder in the world. We also have the best guidance and support from our program director, Robie Vaughn. I feel this has been one of the team's biggest advantages and the reason behind the U.S. Team's recent success. During the early years of my career I often had to work seasonal jobs. It was impossible to hold a job year round with my races all winter. I worked to save up money so that I could make it to the races during the season. One year, I stayed at my parents' house and saved up all my money so that I would be able to get an extra month of training on the tracks in Europe. I set up a trip with my friend Greg who was living in Amsterdam at the time. We borrowed another slider's station wagon to travel to the venues. The trips to the tracks in Austria, Germany and Switzerland sometimes ended up being over 10 hours, so we took turns driving. One would drive while the other napped in the back on the makeshift beds we had made out of our sleeping bags. At one of our stops, we got to make some much-needed cash setting up cables for the television network Eurosport, who would be covering our races. This would translate into another night's stay in a motel instead of the back of the station wagon or in the start and finish houses at the track. It may sound a bit cliché, but we lived on bread and butter sandwiches. Fortunately, we did get support from some of the local people. They let us stay at their hotels for a discounted rate, gave us extra food when we came in to eat at their restaurants and were always up for a friendly chat. I still see these people every year while I am in town, and these relationships are what make my travels real and worth while. I don't look at those days as being that rough, although they were sometimes challenging. I just saw it as doing what we had to do to get on top in the sport. It also helped me realize that not too many people get the opportunity to do what I have done or get the chance to do what they love in their lifetime. -- Chris
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