Amazing. A once in a lifetime experience that was absolutely amazing.
Attending Schladming 2013 as a BSS ambassador was an
opportunity for me to experience a whole new level of skiing first hand, whilst
also meeting new people in similar situations as me, witnessing first hand
Austrian and Styrian culture in particular. It also gave me the opportunity of
taking a well deserved break off ski training without leaving the mountains.
I went to Schladming a little uneasy, mainly because I
wasn’t comfortable with the thought of lots of new people around me. It was a
multi-national camp, whereas personally I’m used to sticking with the same group of lads I train regularly with - and my Glaswegian coach, obviously.
This took me a little out of my comfort zone. Amazingly
however, over the first night and following morning I got to know more and more
people, and made more and more friends from all corners of the world. From
Chile to Russia, from America to Iran I now have friends with similar interests
and experiences. It was a great opportunity for me and it helped me personally
to become more outgoing, more versatile and substantially improve my people
skills. I also have an offer of somewhere to stay when next visiting Argentina!
Without doubt however, the best part of the week was
watching the races. Seeing the best in the world doing what they love was a truly
memorable experience. It also gave me a deep insight in to the level of skiing
which I aspire to achieve and reiterated to me that the only way I was going to
achieve that was to try my hardest and give my all, every minute both on and
off the slopes.
Standing in the VIP area next to the American Team was also something
I won’t forget any time soon. Nor is the breath-taking atmosphere in and around
the stadium, especially when an Austrian skier went down. It was mental! They live and breathe
ski racing.
Off the hill we visited the press centre and experienced what it was like to stand in front of the microphones during a press conference. We also worked on how to make your own videos look
good, how to cut film, which clips and images to choose and how to make the
best videos. This was good for me so that I can take these skills away and I
intend to put them to use in my next video.
We also did lots of different types of skiing, trying out telemark & monoboard skis as well as doing a fair bit of skiing on my own slaloms.
Below are a few pics but if you want to see more please check out my Picasa album at http://tinyurl.com/c2jssew
