Olympic athletes spend hours every day for years, using everything from Tai Chi and trampolines to computers, to help them in their intense quest for the gold medal.
Tai Babilonia remembers her days as a competitive figure skater well. "I'd be on the ice as early as 5 a.m., practice for four hours, then return after school for two more hours of practice.
"When not on the ice, she and partner, Randy Gardner, would study ballet and gymnastics with teachers who instructed them at the rink. They would often top the day off with a run along nearby Santa Monica beach to build stamina and endurance.
Tai and Randy followed this grueling schedule six days a week for decades, but it paid off. They won five consecutive U.S. Senior Pairs titles, and a shot at the gold in the 1980 Olympics in Lake Placid, N.Y. Unfortunately Randy suffered an injury during practice, forcing the duo to withdraw from competition.
This drive and determination are among the characteristics that separate Olympic athletes from ordinary weekend warriors. Skater Brian Boitano "might be on the ice from 5:30 a.m. to 1 p.m., six days a week, year-round, except for a two-week forced vacation," recalls Linda Leaver, who coached Boitano to a gold medal in 1988. Practice sessions followed a pattern: spring and summer were devoted to finding suitable music, experimenting with new routines, and practicing steps of increasing technical difficulty. Fall and winter involved fine-tuning the program.
"Skaters work on it inch by inch until they have it under their belts," Leaver said. "It's just a constant process of re-working."
For the 1988 Olympics, Boitano would practice figures four hours a day and do freestyle skating two hours daily to prepare for the competitive requirements in place at the time, Leaver explained. Olympic rules for figure skating have changed over the past decade, so today's skaters often practice quickness and agility training, and even weight lifting. Leaver has her current crop of budding Olympians work out on trampolines to perfect their rotations and develop the acute sense of body awareness they will need to execute flawless triple and quadruple jumps.
From inside on the rink to outdoors in the winter elements athletes train according to the unique requirement of their sport.
The skeleton, once again an Olympics sport after a 54-year hiatus, involves lying on a sled facedown and hurtling across the ice at speeds exceeding 80 miles an hour. To excel at this sport, competitors -- known as "sliders" -- must rely on mental steel as much as physical prowess.
An explosive start is the key to success in the skeleton, said Terry Holland, one of the coaches of the U.S. team. Sliders give their sleds a running push of 14 to 18 steps, then jump on and let gravity take over. They need strong hip flexors, as well as gluteus and quadriceps, so they can generate as much speed and agility as possible for that first burst. At the Olympic training camp in Lake Placid, sliders trained for and competed in 30-, 60-, and 100-meter sprints two to three hours every other day. A more intense schedule, similar to that maintained by a world-class figure skater, "would break the body down," Holland said.
Once on the sled, the athlete must quickly achieve a certain "quietness," he said. "If you're supple and relaxed on the sled, you can act as your own shock absorber, so you'll absorb the vibrations that might otherwise slow you down if you're too tense." Some competitors practice yoga or Tai Chi so they can remain calm and focused as they fly across the ice.
Visualizing the course also is important. Using what Holland describes as "high-tech help for a low-tech sport," competitors practice with videos and computer programs that simulate the speed and feel of a particular course. They also employ a technique called video overlay, in which they record themselves on a run and then analyze it and compare it side-by-side to a previous run, looking for weaknesses and fine-tuning their timing and strategy.
Different sports require different skills and personalities, but ultimately, the qualities that make an Olympic athlete transcend any training routine. As Tai Babilonia said, "You can train your brains out, but it's what's inside that counts."
(Reported by Norra MacReady in Sherman Oaks, Calif.)
