Happy Kynan

Heli and Vio

If you’ve done a season of international races, you’ll know who Heli and Vio are. And you can’t know one without knowing the other. Relationships, and even marriages, are not unusual on the slalom scene but the blond couple are remarkable for their incredible ability to be continuously together. The Austrians are not only life partners but training partners, so are in each others presence both on and off the water. Every. Single. Day.  

Vio smiles when I ask her what the trick is. ‘There are some words you are not allowed to use. Like ‘always’; ‘you always do this…’, she answers. ‘If we need [time out] it’s mostly because we are really, really tired and that’s a perfect time to take a rest day and spend some time together.’

Heli adds that they have less communication issues than regular coach-athlete relationships. ‘I think…it’s really hard for coaches to use the right words’, says Heli. ‘It’s not the same as what they want to say. But we know each other so well that she knows what I mean. Also, I know a lot of different inputs, like if she’s a little bit ill or injured. But I think we can separate our training and our private lives. It’s not like if we fight on the water we’ll fight afterwards.’

For the past few years they can not have had much time to fight anyway. It’s almost three years to the day since their son Milo was born. No tests are needed to prove he is an Oblinger-Peters: blond hair, blue eyes- tick, tick. Like many children of elite athletes, he was born after an Olympics. ‘We were always pretty much agreed on [having children]… It was about trying to find the right time. And then before Beijing we thought we’d try to see what happened. There was a time before Beijing when everything was really upsetting and there were a lot of negative experiences and we just thought, ‘this can’t be everything’. Of course it’s our jobs but it’s also our lives and it’s the life we’ve been living together. So we wanted to have something that is outside canoeing.’

‘Then everything happened really fast – faster than we expected!’ chuckles Heli.

So now Heli and Vio have little choice but to separate their time on and off the water. It works to their advantage, claims Heli. ‘Now we also make activities with Milo, we go swimming or something, and it takes your mind off. Even if you don’t sleep or read a book or do something for yourself it really takes your mind off and you are recovered.’

It can’t all be games and play though? ‘It does still take a lot away...’, Vio concedes. ‘Yeah, a lot of sleep!’ says Heli, grinning broadly. ‘And a lot of energy. But it’s so worth it. Like when he was small and sometimes just cried the whole night - you don’t care. Nowadays with the training you have to be much more flexible. The kids are often ill or whatever… you can’t follow a strict plan.’

Vio agrees wholeheartedly. ‘We’ve been in the sport so long and we’ve seen so many different people and how they try to perfect every little detail in their athlete life. And sometimes it just makes me laugh because if they go to bed at ten past nine they get really annoyed...’

As if to prove his parents’ point, Milo interrupts Vio to discuss his toy car catalogue.

Heli continues, ‘And also with food! I think I hadn’t eaten any sausages for ten or fifteen years before Milo was born but now? Sausages, nuggets, and fries! First I started with porridge and now I get more yummy things.’

Flexibility may be the name of the game on a day-to-day basis but it’s clear the long term plans are not negotiable: anyone who has seen Vio paddle has seen how determined she is to be the quickest in the field.

Vio’s impressive return to elite level racing so soon after Milo’s birth is a perfect example of this drive. She says she had it all mapped out - Caesarean in April followed by recovery, some training and then World Championships in September 2009. Some may say she is understating it when she admits it ‘was a bit crazy.’ The attitude seems characteristic of Vio’s strength of mind though: rather than the recovery impinging on her race, she focussed on the race to help her through the recovery. ‘It was so fresh,’ she remembers, ‘I really wanted to paddle again, get back in the boat again. Especially because after Beijing when we found out I was pregnant I didn’t do any more races, I didn’t have the chance to race again so it was something that I wanted to do.’ The result was a very solid 5^th place.  The coach in Heli expands on that extraordinary achievement: ‘There’s a certain amount that is physical but the rest is just putting everything together. That’s a very, very big thing.’

And Heli has enough experience to know. Although he started paddling later than most at the age of 16 after a skiing injury, he is now looking towards his fifth Olympics this summer. He’s currently making the most of the warm weather and extra daylight in Australia to train more than he feels he would in Europe. Despite training as hard as any young aspirant, there’s some fatherly wisdom creeping into his approach. ‘It was hard before because you’ve always got a dream and you try to catch your goals. But now you try your best and if it’s good then you enjoy it, but Milo doesn’t care if you don’t win or if you are last. As soon as he sees you he wants to play.’ Heli seems to comply with Milo’s play requests on a regular basis, and there’s something really mischievous and good-natured about Heli that makes him Milo’s perfect side-kick.

With Olympian genes and a coach for a father, it’s easy to picture Milo as the next generation of Austrian canoe slalom. ‘I’d really like to see him do other sports and become a sporty person but I don’t know,’ reflects Vio. ‘I think I’m going to be the last person to make him paddle… To think that one day he might sit in a boat and paddle down white water. When I see some of the small kids I think, what must their mothers think!? I remember how I was hanging on to the big metal poles - I was hanging on to one of those saying ‘I don’t want to go down! … I’m not planning his career.’

Heli and Vio’s careers beyond the Olympics are unconfirmed too. Second or third children sound imminent and Heli has promised Vio that he’ll coach her when he retires - ‘but I think he’s had enough of me,’ she grins. ‘Plus I have too many things I need to learn so I really can’t stop.’

For days after my chat with Heli and Vio I try to answer my initial question: how do they manage to live, train, and raise a child together, whilst living in each others pockets? Despite reading them through several times, my notes aren’t any help. There’s no one thing that stands out. As a whole though?  There’s a great deal of love, respect and support in that relationship. And boys, before you knock it, just remember it’s produced 19 World Cup medals, 2 World Championship medals and an Olympic medal so far. And counting. 

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To visit Heli and Vio's website click here.

The Hedgehog Concept

So we all know that foxes are wiley and intelligent. They are kind of the woodland's version of George Clooney: smart, good at a variety of things and great eyes.

Hedgehogs on the other hand: only good at one thing:

And Jim Collins, author of Good-to-Great, reckons that being great at just one thing is better than being good at lots of things. 


Rupert Grint's bank account agrees.


Collins says that the companies who are truly great (who consistently outperform their market comparisons by more than 300% for at least 15 years) do three things based on this concept:


1. They know what they can be the best in the world at,
2. They are passionate about it,
3. They understand where they can see the most profit per effort.


So the example Collins uses is that of Walgreen's pharmacies in the US:


1. Could be the best in the world at providing convenient pharmacies (not cheapest, not biggest... most convenient)
2. They were passionate about it 
3. They understood that focusing on most profit per customer was in line with their Hedgehog concept (if they had focused on profit per store then they wouldn't have been convenient because they would have built big, efficient stores on cheap, inconvenient land)


What if this applied to paddling as well? For example...


1. Could be the best in the world at exiting upstreams
2. Passionate about exiting upstreams (but be honest with yourself - if you've got more love for nailing staggers than exiting gates, then your plan needs to revolve around tapping into that)
3. You understand that shaving 0.5sec per upstream is where you can see more results per effort (but maybe you don't, maybe pure sprint speed between moves would yield greater results, in which case you need to be the best at sprinting and be passionate about it).

But bear in mind that Collins also reckons:

- It takes time. Great companies took an average of 4 years to work out their Hedgehog concept because there's a lot of self-analysis needed for it to get specific enough to work for you.

- You have to be really disciplined. Companies often faltered on the road to becoming great when they diversified into opportunities that were 'too good to miss' and yet had nothing to do with their Hedgehog concept. If it's not in line with what you can be best at, are passionate about, and you see the greatest returns from (all three remember!) then you have to be disciplined enough to walk away. 

Interesting theory, eh? 

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To visit Jim Collins' website click here but I WARN YOU that he is really American and his accent may put you off the whole thing ... maybe stick to the book instead.

Bear Grylls

Geddit?


I now have a mini crush on Bear Grylls because I listed to an interview with him yesterday. Before you judge me, here are my reasons:


1. Bear is not his real name. And suddenly he's a lot less irritating
2. Good music choices (according to me) including Johnny Cash and Buddy Holly. 
3. Although he attended Eton, he climbed the school buildings rather than studying how to be a Tory.


But here's my justification for sharing this with you on the blog...


When asked how he manages to overcome his fears in tough situations he replies:


"I try to treat fear as just an emotion. It's there to sharpen me for what I need to do. It's my body giving me heightened senses and a good awareness so I can do what I'm about to do... when I look at it like that, fear is something that can serve me rather than dominate me.


I'm going to try and remember that next time I'm going to run something I know I can do if I just contain my churning butterflies. 


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To listen to the whole interview click here.

Luuka Jones

Luuka Jones has really white teeth. I know this because she’s usually smiling. Some would say she has plenty of reasons to smile, not least because she already has her Olympic entry confirmed. Luuka’s result at the 2011 World Championships in Bratislava secured her the spot for New Zealand back in September.

Plus, despite being short of a slalom coach, Luuka is considerably faster since her last Olympics in 2008. ‘I guess I just changed my perspective on what hard training was,’ reflects Luuka. ‘I just wanted to get better hard out so I’ve just been training my arse off basically,’ she summarises in characteristic Kiwi fashion. This was aided by her collaboration with Jane Borren from Waiariki Academy of Sport. ‘It was the first major input I’d had… I increased my workload in the gym, starting getting proper training programs, and monitoring my training. I think that made a lot of difference.’

All the same, slalom is a very small discipline in New Zealand so sport specific coaching is hard to come by. ‘They’re sport scientists at the end of the day so it worries me a bit,’ says Luuka of the Waiariki team. ‘I’m always watching other paddlers and what they’re doing… I’m always looking at how to improve and I have to do it myself. I don’t have someone telling me how I can get better or someone on the bank so I have to be really conscious of how I do things.’

But it sounds like the main disadvantage is the effort of finding perpetual motivation. ‘Someone said to me the other day,’ comments Luuka, ‘you can’t underestimate the stress of having to think. And it’s so true. Just waking up in the morning and going to training and having to set your own course and having to think about whether you’re going hard enough or whether you’re in the right zone. Just having to always think: during training, after training, travelling, everything.’

Four years of motivating yourself and second-guessing your decisions takes its toll. Understandably, Luuka finds it hardest at races. ‘I get disappointed in myself really easily actually because when you don’t have a coach there you don’t have someone to say, ‘that was alright - we just need to work on this.’ [Instead] it’s like, ‘I’ve finished the race and I didn’t get the result I’d hoped. I have to go and analyse the video by myself and work it out. It’s hard.’

The mega-watt smile has faded a bit.

‘Internally, I’ve run out of minerals. I’ve used all my minerals up training for the last three years getting to where I am now. I think I need to find something else to progress further, I think the coaching is what I need.’

Thanks to some funding, in six weeks time, coaching is exactly what Luuka’s going to get. In April, Luuka will fly to London to train at the Olympic venue and be coached by Andrew Raspin (a.k.a. Kidda). ‘It’s the longest period that I’ll ever have been coached and I’m so excited.’ She certainly sounds it: ‘I am so amped. You’re working with someone you trust and it’s more of a team effort, you’re not just out there on your own, you can work together.’

Advice and feedback don’t seem to be her main concern. She hasn’t mentioned video reviews or split timings. Luuka is well known in the slalom community for her outgoing and friendly manner so it makes sense that she seems most excited about having some company: ‘I just think having someone else to do it with, having someone who cares, who is at the river, who is basically in it with me…. I think that would help a lot.’

Of course, Luuka isn’t the only paddler to be in this lonely dilemma, and she won’t be the last, but that shouldn’t detract from how tough training alone can be. She’s got seven more weeks to go until Kidda can take over some of the thinking.

She just has to keep smiling until then. 

I think she can. 

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To visit Luuka's website click here

Valentine

Sometimes they are too in love to live with. But most the time it just makes me smile.

Who is the strongest?

On the weekend, when Ben explained to Vlada Galuska (of Galasport kayaks) that there were still two Australian selection races left, Vlada said: 


Thiz iz good. 


It meanz that the strongest will win. The strongest in the head.


And that iz what the Olympics iz about. Who iz mentally the strongest. 


I think thiz iz good. 

Felt this before?

If you've raced, you've probably made this face before too. Anguish? Annoyance? Frustration? Exhaustion? 

Stefano Cipressi - Anything but Ordinary

Stefano Cipressi doesn’t look like a typical World Champion. He’s not aloof like Martikan, there’s no Hulk biceps like Molmenti, and he’s not known for histrionics like the Hochschorners. In fact, the Italian is pretty reserved. He wears bookish glasses and a shy smile, and although he’s forthcoming in conversation, he doesn’t attract attention to himself in a group.

But then Cipressi’s 2006 World Championship story wasn’t typical either. In fact, he didn’t even make the Italian team that year. What’s more, after missing K1 selection, he turned his attention to C1 and also spent weeks in a plastic boat before belatedly filling a spot in the Championship. The offer of an entry to the Prague Championships only arose when events led to the Italian Federation filling some spare spots with young athletes. Once at Prague, the then 24 year old got back in his K1 and smashed his way to the final in first place by several seconds. And although it was lightning quick, Cipressi’s finals run was out of the ordinary as well, sparking controversy over two up-streams that were regarded as fifties by some but all clear by the judges.

‘If I have to think of a good memory, I will remember other important races than Prague’, admits Cipressi when I ask him about 2006. He would much rather turn the conversation to his fond memories of Bourg St Maurice in 2004 when he won the World Cup; ‘it’s still a beautiful dream in my memory.’ When I turn the conversation back to Prague he simply explains that he takes responsibility for running a risk in the race and made the most of the situation he found himself in. ‘[After the race] I had 30 minutes when I was really happy because you train a lot, and in Italy you sacrifice relationships, and I was out of the team for two years and I arrived in Prague to race. I was probably one of the least likely to win and within a couple of hours everything changed.’ I ask him if he believes in luck. ‘I don’t really believe in luck. I believe luck is really close to emotion, so you have to believe in what you are doing to try to do something. You have to try every time to add something to your information of what you need to know.’

He attributes much of his edge in that memorable race to the psychologist who was working with him. ‘He helped me a lot to find a way to be free in competition’, explains Cipressi. ‘Every athlete has his balance… and I was really free in the semi-final and also in the final.’ He pauses and adds, ‘In the final I was more excited.’

Does he think that race has changed the way he races since? ‘I am a bit instinctive when I’m in a big competition so I think probably nothing has changed,’ he answers, grinning. ‘But it is also the [nature] of competing at top levels: a lot of times I try to change something, maybe in training I change something, but in the competition you have to be natural. When I watch people like Fabien Leferve I think they are very lucky because they can paddle K1, C1, or C2 and are fast because they have the movement inside. Other people have to construct every little stroke. People are in half way between one and the other. I think I have a good instinct because I was paddling very young.’

He was indeed very young. Cipressi remembers his first experience in a boat with his father at the age of six or seven. His father ‘did a little of everything’, including DR. During one DR race, Cipressi’s father collected him from the bank during a race before finishing the last kilometre of a grade II river. Later memories consist of watching his father and brother paddling whilst he ‘was out of the river with my mother.’ It was only a matter of time before he joined them.

Ten years later, footage of fellow Italian Pierpaolo Ferrazzi medalling in Penrith in 2000 inspired Cipressi to aim for his own medal. ‘I saw the video a lot of times and it was my dream to win a medal.’ So the journey began.

According to Cipressi, the years between 2000 and 2006 went by pretty quickly. He first achieved a spot on the Italian team at 20 years of age in 2002 and maintained that team spot for the next two years.

During that time the military snapped him up, not uncommon for athletes prior to an Olympics, according to Cipressi. ‘When I was in the army something changed because I was on the base, I was close with other athletes. I was more motivated to train because at home I don’t have any friends for training and every time I trained at home I didn’t have a coach.’

In 2004, although he missed the Italian Olympic spot, he made a final in a World Cup and, as he puts it: ‘I was fast.’ Things were on track.

The next year, however, Cipressi did not make the Italian team. He wasn’t fazed and remembers thinking the year was ‘quite good’ but it clearly wasn’t part of his plan for a medal.

Then in 2006, ‘the first part of the year was big trouble’ because Cipressi missed Italian selection for the second year running. So he made the curious decision to paddle C1 instead. Why? ‘I like C1 more than K1,’ he answers straightforwardly. Painful knees had prevented him from paddling C1 when he was in his teens, and his club apparently didn’t encourage the C1 class in DR anyhow. After selection in 2006, though, Cipressi decided a change would be good.

History shows that it certainly didn’t seem to do him any harm, despite the drama of the World Championship win.

After 2006, Cipressi prioritised his study over training. He has been interested in psychology since secondary school and went back to the University of Bologna to study the subject. Although he continued to train hard through ’07, ’08 and ’09 he believes that putting study first may have held him back: ‘Now I know that I can do very good only one thing and a half!’ Another factor may also have been that Bologna is two and half hours from white water.

Nevertheless, there seems to be some truth in Cipressi’s self-assessment. Only in 2010 after the bulk of his degree did he reach a World Championship final again. With the fresh result and the end of the degree in sight, the winter of ’10/’11 saw slalom take priority again. Yet in January 2011, during a training camp, Cipressi suffered severe pains in the seat of the boat. A cist in the base of his back, possibly from years in the sport, had to be removed as soon as possible. ‘I was thinking it could be an easy operation’, remembers Cipressi, ‘but in the end I stayed lying one month in bed’. Despite recovering his fitness before selection later that year, Cipressi failed to make the team. In addition, new Italian Federation rules declared that 2012 Olympic spots would only be available to athletes who had achieved a final in 2011. Now he was ‘out of selection and out of Olympics’.

So apparently another class change from K1 to C1 was in order – the very next day after selection.

‘I don’t know for other people but for me it’s really important to change because I have a lot of new energy when I change and a lot of motivation to change and research. In this period I am working a lot for fitness but every session I search something new.’

Certainly, Cipressi’s 2012 goals continue to revolve around C1. Despite suggestions that his change of class was driven by strategic Olympic goals, Cipressi insists he’s in the C-class because he loves it.

His relaxed laugh and his pleasure in talking about learning new things convinces me that fun, rather than Hollywood-style comebacks, really is the underlying motivation.

It shouldn’t be hard to believe; simple enjoyment was the reason we all started canoeing anyhow so why shouldn’t it be the reason to continue?

Cipressi’s approach may not be typical but it seems pretty smart to me. 

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Click here for Stefano Cipressi's webiste

Jacqui Lachmann - Life after Retirement

Jacqui Lachmann definitely walks at slower pace now than in 2008.

In her thirty-ninth week of pregnancy there is no denying that the rotund bump Lachmann (née Lawrence) is carrying is presenting some new challenges.

‘I’ve had a pretty easy pregnancy but it’s definitely a mental challenge in terms of expecting a huge change and trying to mentally prepare for it when you’ve never done it before.’

This change is one of many since the last Olympics.

In the space of four years, the Australian silver medal winner has bought an apartment and married her fellow Olympian husband, sprint C1 paddler Torsten Lachmann, in addition to falling pregnant with a baby girl.

Due any day now, Lachmann is calling on some old sporting methods to help her through this enormous life change.

‘I’m using some of the skills I used as an athlete, like visualisation, not just in thinking about bringing the baby home but in preparing for labour. I’ve also been learning as much as I can and informing myself as best I can, which is something I did as an athlete. And of course, I had many years of pushing myself physically, but I’m still expecting labour to be hard!’

Lachmann’s present calm and domestic attitude is a lifetime away from the determined and driven face she presented four years ago.

This must in part be down to the fairy tale ending of her canoeing career.

An outside chance on the day, Lachmann achieved an impressive solid run on a tough Beijing course that had swept many K1 women’s runs aside that day.

Lachmann attributes her medal winning outlook to putting the games into perspective.

‘I feel I got some good perspective on life before the selection races and before Olympics. It helped me to perform because I could put myself as athlete in perspective alongside other priorities and experiences in life.’

‘Retirement was an easy decision for me. I don’t have any regrets or questions about whether I should have kept going and I realise I’m really fortunate with that’.

The only part of her old life she misses, is seeing her international friends, she concedes.

Lachmann’s younger sisters, Kate and Ros, will be racing for the Olympic spot in February. With her increasingly maternal outlook, Lachmann has some sage advice for her siblings.

‘Trust yourself. You’ve already got a lot of experience; you know what works and doesn’t work for you. Trust your gut.’

I can’t help thinking that Lachmann may find her own advice especially apt in the next few months. 

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Click here for the Lawrence sisters' website