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Home ice advantage
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. July 16, 2001 I recently attended the last of three USOC Olympic Summit 2002 Meetings. The Summit was set up by the U.S. Olympic Committee for potential medal winners to work with a panel of past Olympic medalists to prepare for the upcoming Games.
It gives athletes an opportunity to discuss and work through issues with training and competing that they may be facing. The panel of past Olympians gives insight as to how they handled some of the issues that they encountered during the Olympics and in their sporting careers. Each of the Summit meetings has a theme that covers an array of topics and aspects of training and competing that athletes should prepare for leading up to and including the Olympics. The theme for the Summit this year was "Step It Up". With seven months to go, we discussed everything concerning what we need to do to have the edge to win Olympic medals. One of the main things that we discussed, and a topic that Jack O'Callahan from the 1980 U.S. Hockey Team gave an inspiring speech on, was the home field advantage. Mike Conley, who competed in the triple jump in the 1984 and 1996 Olympics held in the United States also spoke on how competing in the U.S. was an advantage to him. Through discussions, I found that one of the biggest differences that a lot of athletes from past Olympic athletes noticed about having the Games in the United States was the massive U.S. spirit and the support that the spectators showed. Quite a few of the questions that I have been getting asked have been exactly about that. What is the benefit of having the competition in the Olympics on the home track? Is having the competition on the home track going to give you an advantage? I have been competing on the track in Park City since it opened in 1996 and have had a lot of success on it, with a bunch of wins on the Olympic track. Some of the competitors find the track not as challenging as others, but for me it is one of the tracks that no matter how many times I go down it, I always go out and have fun with each run. I have a lot of friends and supporters that live right in town, which makes training and living there a lot more comfortable. Being able to practice on the track that the Olympic race is going to be on and knowing what I am going to be facing through repetition of events on the track is part of the home track advantage. We hold most of our trial races on the track in Park City, and a good portion of our pre-season training is also done in Park City. I equate the Olympics to last year's World Cup race in Park City. It was at a smaller scale than the Olympics is going to be, but the media was there and the crowds were there supporting us, so I got a glimpse of how the event could play out this year. The support from the fans was truly incredible and the energy level was heightened. It wasn't the best performance of the season, but the experience helped me see the parts of my race that didn't go the way I had planned, and helped me realize what I have to prepare for this upcoming season. It's going to be huge! I also realize that there are factors of competing on home ice that are going to be more challenging. The pressure to have the best race of your career, as well as expectations from peers and supporters all weigh heavily during big competitions. The press can be a factor of how the flow of a race goes and can take an athlete out of his or her game if not dealt with correctly. These are some of the things that I am aware I will have to face and feel I am prepared to handle throughout the upcoming season. The scale of the Olympics may be enlarged, but I have raced in major competitions before and, after 10 years in the sport, I believe I am ready for the challenge. -- Chris
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