- Untitled
- The season begins
- Jan 2010
- Feb 2010
- March 2010
- April 2010
- May 2010
- Ski Pictures 2010
- June 2010
- July 2010
- August 2010
- September 2010
- October 2010
- Late October
- November
- December 2010
- January 2011
- February
- The European Youth Olympic Festival
- March 2011
- The season ends
- May and June 2011
- End of June
- July
- August in Yorkshire
- September 2011
- 28 October 2011
- November/December 2011
- Season 2012
- February 2012
- March and April
- June
- 'Summer' 2012
All good things
It is approaching midnight. Seven sets of skis are weighing down the Subarru. We have just hit the M1 northbound; it is drizzling. It feels pretty drizzle- like anyway. It is probably morning for the kids, Chilean time, I decide to break the silence.
'So what's this all about?'
'I am quitting'
'Why?'
'Ski racing isn't fun any more'
'Oh, okay, so want do you what do want to do'.
'Go to the best university I can and read English Literature'
End of conversation.
Not reported immediately as kids have this habit of changing their minds. And he did, now he wants to read philosophy.
++++++++++
'Aren't you mad at him?' Asked a friend a few months later. ' After all you put into his ski-ing?'
Mad? No. A bit put out, yes as it would have been nice to be consulted, to be thanked even, but the outcome would have been the same.
When an 11 year kid gets it into his had that he wants to race ski what does he know? We, as adults, made the conscious decision to commit the time and money, and we had a really good time along the way. For as long as he wanted to get up at the crack of dawn in freezing conditions and train his butt off we facilitated but he was not doing it for us, so who are we to say whether he should continue or not.
Sam's lovely coach in the Club de Sport, Stephane, once said to me: 'Until you are sixteen ski racing is a game - after that it becomes a job'. if you are British, it is not a paid job, nor is there any management or direction to speak of.
And how do we learn, if not from games:
'To deal with triumph and disaster, and treat those two impostors just the same' (Kipling)
And he is an Olympian at sixteen, and he got out in one piece.