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Lessons from the Games - Rob Boyd and the Whistler Mountain Ski Club

"Someone who asks a question is stupid for five minutes but someone who doesn't ask is stupid for life." Traditional Chinese Proverb For Canadian spectators, the 2010 Olympics was everything they'd dreamed about. Lots of gold for the home team.

"Someone who asks a question is stupid for five minutes but someone who doesn't ask is stupid for life."

Traditional Chinese Proverb

 

For Canadian spectators, the 2010 Olympics was everything they'd dreamed about. Lots of gold for the home team. Lots of dramatic performances by under-promoted athletes. Lots of chest thumping and flag waving and fist pumping by the folks in the stands. It was a home-side party like few in this country have ever celebrated.

Alas, one national team failed to deliver at those Games. While their Snoweater colleagues - snowboarders, freestylers and skicrossers - were raking in the hardware like there was a fire sale on at Home Depot, Canada's once-vaunted alpine skiers left Sea to Sky country with their collective tail between their legs. Not one podium. A lot of mediocre skiing. Much finger pointing and head-ducking and blame-dodging among its leaders.

In short, it was a bit (well, maybe more than a bit) of an embarrassment for both staff and athletes of Alpine Canada. And no one - and I mean no one - took it harder than Whistler's favourite homeboy.

"That was a tough week," admits Rob Boyd. "In fact, it was a tough season all around." An assistant coach with the women's speed team (and the highest ranking Canadian on staff), Boyd watched in disbelief as his squad's carefully-planned four-year campaign came to a crashing conclusion on the slopes of Whistler Mountain that fateful February.

"It was hard to believe," he says. "We really thought we had it going there at one point..." Indeed - back in 2008, the Canadian speed women had been nearly untouchable. Led by Britt Janyk, Emily Brydon and Kelly Vanderbeek, Boyd's Beauties scored podium after podium that season. The future looked bright.

But then, nothing is ever "assured" in alpine ski racing.

There were many, many reasons for the team's sudden drop in performance. Year-ending injuries to both front-leaders and up-and-comers; communication issues between European and Canadian staff; a sense of panic in the team's front office (at one point in the season a highly-placed executive was heard to mutter "If only I could bubble wrap all these skiers until February 14..."); unreal expectations from media and supporters; motivation problems among some of the team veterans - they all played a role in the team's demise.

And nothing was going to change in the short term. By the time Boyd and his gals arrived at Whistler, the former World Cup champion knew they were in trouble. But there was little he could do by then. His only hope was to soldier on and hope for the best.

"And when you're just hoping for the best," explains Boyd, "your chances of winning go wa-y-y-y-y down."

Those who know Rob Boyd - I mean really know him - understand that he is one of the most positive-minded individuals on the planet. The glass is never half-full for Boyd. It's overflowing.

Still, the Whistler Games were not a happy time for him. He's a proud man and a huge supporter of Canadian ski racing. His team's crushing failure in 2010 put a real dampener on his Olympic homecoming.

So how does he feel about it today? There's a long pause before he speaks again. "Peel away all the crap that was going on before the Games - all the expectations; all the antics..." At this point he laughs. "Yeah. Take all that stuff away and the Olympics were pretty damn cool." A smile dances across his features. "To have the Games in our own backyard - in a place that had been built for that - well, it's an experience that I will remember for a very long time."

But he admits it took a while for him to get into the swing of things. "Right after the speed events," he continues. "Once they'd passed and we didn't medal, everyone on the team was pretty down. All we wanted to do was get out of there. Go anywhere - back to Europe even. Just so we didn't have to be confronted with our failure."

Fortunately Rob has Sherry. And his feisty spouse (they don't call her "Punchy" for nothing) wasn't about to let her ol' sore-headed husband ruin the Olympic experience. "Sherry insisted," he laughs. "She told me: 'this is the Olympics! You can be depressed later. But now let's go out and enjoy the scene.'" A big grin. "So that's what we did..."

And he got to experience the rest of the Olympic party just like you and me. "I didn't know it at the time, but all my accreditation had been made invalid once the speed events were completed. So suddenly - I had zero privileges. I was just one of the crowd." He smiles again. "And you know what? That was great. I got to see the Games from both the athlete's and the spectator's perspectives."

Eventually our conversation returns to the subject of "performance on demand." "So why didn't we win any medals?" he asks rhetorically. And laughs once more. "I could write a book on that..."

Silence reigns for a few beats. "You know - success is a very fragile thing. I learned a lot of things during my stint on the women's team. It wasn't easy. And it wasn't always fun. But I think I became a much better coach for it."

Boyd's Five Olympic Lessons:

1: Don't let things fester. Address personal issues immediately before they start to infect teammates and/or coaches.

2: Don't be afraid to go back to fundamentals. Focus on what makes you go fast.

3: The coach needs to go beyond the norm. He's got to be on-point 24/7. This is not a "clock-puncher's" job.

4: The head coach needs to be open to other opinions and ideas from other staff. This is so important! The whole has to be greater than the sum of its parts!

5: You need to conduct a thorough debriefing after every race. What did we do well? What could we improve upon? What will we do differently next time? If you don't have regular debriefings, you'll just keep making the same mistakes over and over again.

Although endowed with an over-supply of optimism, Boyd is also a realist. He respects the "magic" of ski racing (and competition in general). He also understands how unexpected circumstances can totally alter the future. And he's quick to bring up a particular example. "I can't help thinking of Allyson Forsyth's case," he says. "And what her loss meant to our team." He sighs sadly. "If only she could have stayed healthy - she was such a strong leader. Never afraid to say things straight up." Another long sigh. "Ally's injury totally devastated us. It really damaged our team." More silence. "And yet she fought so hard to come back. It was really heartbreaking to watch..."

And there's the rub, he says. "Damn it! We've got to attract a lot more athletes to ski racing in this country. Lose a few - like we did before the Games - and we're done! We're focusing far too much effort on far too few skiers. If the sport is going to thrive in Canada, we've got to broaden our base - both on the athlete's side and the coach's side."

At least he gets a chance to see what he can do about that himself. As the new Sports Development Manager for the Whistler Mountain Ski Club, two of his principal tasks will be recruitment and coach mentoring. "It's pretty exciting," he acknowledges. "But there's so much to be done at this level. It's all a bit overwhelming."

Still, he says, there are some really bright lights on the horizon. "I attended a 'State of Sport' conference at Whistler recently. And you know, it was great. There were coaches there from luge and freestlyle and snowboard. We're really beginning to pool our information now - even planning training sessions with other sport disciplines." He laughs. "Maybe even trading athletes too. I had one luge coach ask me if we had some big, strong kids in our program better suited to sliding down a course on their butts." More laughter. "And I could think of a few! But seriously - that's what the future is going to bring. A lot more collaboration between the disciplines."

 

Next Week: Rob gives us an insight into his vision for junior ski racing as well as a sneak preview of the new Dave Murray National Training Centre.