beijingolympics

BEIJINGOLYMPICS

The Journey to Beijing Olympic Games

Let’s get to work

So here we are, ready to out source and work harder and smarter than the rest of the U.S. competition. There was one goal: Win some medals at the Olympic games. Should be a piece a cake, after all it’s just another BMX event, where is the sign up window in Beijing? Yeah right, this isn’t your NBL/ABA National event.

The Olympic road (it’s not a climb it’s a journey)

This was something I learned from one of my favorite speakers, UCLA Softball coach Sue Enquist. She told me if you drill them about the Olympic goal being this climb up a mountain, they’re going to crack, look at this as a journey from here to there”

And trust me, there were lots of times when Mike, Jill and I could easily break and just say “screw it, this is too hard”. But I think that’s the part of the journey to any destination and the bumps in the road are just that, something that can be navigated through and once you go through it, it’s behind you.

Step one: Qualifying

The reality for all of us was this; there were no guarantees for any of these guys going to Beijing unless they won the “automatic selections”. For those that didn’t know, there were only 3 spots available for the men and two of them were going to be “automatic selections”, meaning a rider objectively wins his right to start at the Olympic games. For the women, there was only one guaranteed starting position, which had to be won objectively, with the possibility of two (more on that later).

As the 2007 season Olympic race took shape, the first selection spot was going to the athlete who won the year long season points race which consisted of about 19 events or so. Kyle Bennett scorched the field winning like 90% of those races and had his automatic selection spot wrapped up 4 months before Beijing Olympic Games. The other automatic starting position was going to be awarded to the winner of the Olympic Trials. The 3rd starting position was the “coaches pick” in which Donny Robinson was likely to be anointed for his sustained success in pressure situations including a win at the Beijing test event. So that meant for Mike Day, a man who has struggled all year with the pressure, figured out quickly that if he wanted to continue to manifest his goal that he set back in 2005 of going to the Olympics, he had to win the Olympic Trials.

The Pressure for Mike Day

To keep it short, for those who don’t know, Mike Day was easily the most consistent pro from 2005 to 2007. It wasn’t until the 2007/08 season that Mike was going through a slump. Although his training was good and we quantified objectively that he was improving, getting more powerful on the bike, there was a problem off the bike: his focus was being challenged. Mike was distracted with his long time relationship with his girlfriend coming to an end and then the pressure of qualifying for the Olympics. This was a self-imposed pressure we spoke about, as he knew that he had the best support program of all the athletes in the world of BMX. He had Red Bull, GT Bicycles. He had earned his bed space at the Olympic Training Center, and USA Cycling was funding his travel.

Do you know how many 5th place semi finishes Mike Day had in 2008? So many that I started to wonder if I was the problem and began to think “am I that bad of a coach? What can I do differently?” The fact is, in BMX, it’s easy to have a bad weekend but when you start to do it consistently then one must scrutinize every component and rebuild the weak ones and not only did we do it for Mike, I had to take a hard look in the mirror as well by reaffirming my purpose and intents. “Was I selling Mike short?”

Getting Psyched Out

This is when I decided not to screw around and pretend to be a psychologist and we all agreed that Mike should talk to USOC Sports Psychologist James Bauman. James took very well care of reframing both Jill and Mike’s Olympic purpose and would help them manage it. James also helped me form time to time because let’s face it; I don’t know what the Olympic experience is all about. Never done it, no one in BMX has.

Making it fun again

Mike Day was getting sick of training well but not performing, we had to make it fun again. We had to approach the next training session with a short-term memory and simply change a few things with the riding to make it fun. We worked on his random gate biomechanics and made him more efficient. Next we had to change the mindset. This meant identifying problems off the track, like I said, get a psychologist, take care of it and or at least make it manageable that way we can go into the training with a clear head and stay on track with the goals. Hindsight, I can’t believe we made it through that storm. But staying in it, and managing it was what did it. This is that adversity that Mike Day, the Olympic Medalist had to go through.

Olympic Trials

So after yet another 5th place semi at the UCI SX in Denmark, Mike rode very well there by the way, he was actually winning his semi when he screwed up technically over a jump, something very uncharacteristic of Mike and something that reflected yet the his mental focus wasn’t yet 100%. Mike realized that and needed some time to fix it. At the same time the next 2 event were coming up: World Championships and the Olympic Trials. Mike came up with a brilliant idea to skip worlds and focus on Trials. He already medaled twice at the past 3 worlds, so it wasn’t like he was missing out. This would give him enough time to work on his mentals, refine his overall riding, and actually go into a race prepared where there was something on the line, a profound goal where it was do or die. Mike races well when there is a purpose. So why not take the worlds off, and be physically and mentally peaked for what many consider will be the most important race in American BMX history.

Never the less, with authority, Mike proved to the critics and himself that he still had it in him and unlocked one of his best performances at the Olympic Trials, dominating a tough American field. Congratulations, Mike can now say he is an Olympians.

Jill was going through her own adversity

For Jill Kintner, she faced a number of issues. One, she had blown up her knee while halfway through the year long points chase for the only automatic selection that USA Cycling could guarantee. (There were no guarantees that USA could earn 2 starting spots). Jill has a decent lead on Arielle Martin who was lurking in second when Jill had blown her ACL out on some jumping trails. Second, Jill was fighting the identity issues of still bring a Mountain Biker vs. a BMX racer. Back in 2003 she quit the sport of BMX to move forward into Mountain Bikes where she was comfortable beating up on what many consider soft competition, but reality was Jill was that good of a racer. She can out race anyone.

No Fear, yeah right.

Jill also openly will admit she has fears of having bad crashes and this was a huge issue during many of our hundred or so training sessions. She would back off and not commit. Do you know how many times tires we went through from skidding up take offs? Or how many times do I have to use dartfish to show her that with her speed and trajectory she will make that jump? But she was scared and feared she might get hurt again.

Reality was this though, she was wearing a brace to support her knee and this reminded her that she was vulnerable. She also had some knee joint tracking issues that also reminded her that the knee was weak and it would give out from time to time. This was a problem and impeded on my proposed goal of developing her power to get close enough to her competition of Shanaze Reade or Anne Chauson, two of the most powerful and skilled competitors on a BMX bike. Luckily, or not so, Jill had another crash in training forcing her to clean up the scar tissue that existed. They say things happen for a reason and this was the only way to look at that last crash.

The Olympic Qualifying Points Chase

Anyhow, her fellow roommate Arielle Martin had passed Jill in points by now. Arielle rallied with some good finished proving that she was a world class contender and also someone that could do really well at come Beijing Olympic time. The only problem we faced for these two was that there were no guarantees that there would be 2 starting spots.

I knew this when we first read the selection criteria and always told Jill “you don’t want to mess with trying to get the coaches pick as there might not even be one.” It was obvious that Jill was no longer the favorite to go to the Olympics and at one point was written off as damaged goods. Belief is what she had. What I tried to get her to focus on was self. Stop worrying about things you can’t control and start focusing on the simple things. We went back to the basics before the show down at worlds. This is where she had to just perform well enough and be ready for opportunity.

With her being 14 points down going into the last Olympic points event, all she can do was focus on making the final. In fact, I told her to race like it’s her last day on a BMX bike. Jill likes to get fired up and responds well to it so that was the simplest theme I could stick with. Really, with a 14 point deficit and the way Arielle had been riding in the past 2 months there was no way in hell she could beat Arielle in points. My only hope was that Arielle would do well enough to earn the US another Olympic starting position and then hope that the US Selection committee could recognize that Jill was medal capable at the Olympics. Long story short, Arielle had a crash in her quarterfinal and failed to get the US and herself any more points. At this point, Jill made the semi final but needed to make the final and then place 6th or better in the final. 6th place was good enough to beat out Arielle for what was now known as the only starting position that the USA was going to have. Knowing this, I had to get her mind back into those training sessions where I would challenge her and tell her to be an animal. Another words focus on the basics and be primal, be a primal animal.

She made the final and then placed 6th. Boom she was in. She earned the automatic selection. She was now going to be known as an Olympian.

*Whoop dee do, we are now going to the Olympics. “The Adam Parks example”

I rode and raced velodrome bikes back in 2003 when USA Cycling recruited BMX racers to transition into “Trackies”. So I trained with the National team, stayed at the Olympic Training Center for a month, and raced a few domestic events. Truth was, I wasn’t good enough to be a world-class trackie. Anyways, the National Team had several former Olympic members and I could mention their names but no one reading this would know who were they were because they were just that, Olympians who got like 14th out of 15th place. I would tell this story to Mike and Jill about my experience of being with these “Olympians” and then use it as a motivational tool. I would say “you know, you need to train with an Olympic medalist attitude instead of just someone going to the Olympics and come out of Beijing with some hardware around your neck, you don’t want to be known as Adam Parks” and they would look at me funny and say “who the heck is that” and I would say “exactly, someone that just went to the Olympics for the experience and then had the nerve to get some Olympic rings tattoo on his shoulder” we all laughed.

This wasn’t to put pressure on them but to reaffirm their purpose of going to Beijing and to make sure they’re feeling good about succeeding and not being scared to fail (or is it skeered?). It was a way to reconfigure their focus and make the next goal manifest just like we made the qualifying manifest.

A Realistic Goal (being ready for opportunity)

Although Mike and Jill had sealed their Olympic berths, there weren’t favored to win. The emphasis and goal was to win medals for these two, and to be honest I told them I don’t care what color it was, just leave Beijing as a medalist and not someone who just went to the Olympics for the experience. For Mike, we knew he was going to medal through, we actually spoke about how he was going to win this thing, but I also told him if you’re in a position to win and it’s not risky, take it, otherwise 2012 is a long 4 years away and if you at least medal, not many BMXers can say they medaled at the Olympics for the next 4 years, in fact only 6 BMX athletes were going to be able to say that. He agreed, but he said he wanted GOLD! He even asked me about his Gold Nike race shoes, “Should I wear these?” I said “hell yes, you’re here for a gold medal, don’t be skeered” We laughed. In fact all we do is laugh. Laughter is good!

Despite all of the Jill critics saying she is not good enough or fast enough to win or medal, or she was “USA Cycling’s anointed”, I say B.S. This girl flat out earned her spot and she was ready for opportunity. That has been the theme for Jill the whole time. I would talk about this to Dr. Stephen Gunter, our team chiropractor and a black belt in Aikido, he reiterated “exactly, success comes when the prepared meets opportunity”.

Last Weeks of Preparing

Truth is, how does an Olympic medalist train? And the answer really depends on the sport. So we went with what we knew and kept the training theme simple. Be balanced going into Beijing. Mike and Jill both trained with a goal to physical peak for the Olympics. Great. But what about the mentals? For Jill this was easy and like I said before, I would program her mindset to “be ready for opportunity”. That was her theme. The goal was to make the final and be ready to cross that line in a medal position. For Mike, after trials, he expressed to me that he liked the preparation plan that I designed for him before trials. He felt the best he had ever been. He didn’t want to change anything. He wanted to use the same formula that worked. Great! This made me more confident as a coach. We had 9 weeks to prepare so this gave us some time to really fine tune the mentals and start really integrate scenarios during our on the bike and off the bike training sessions. We simulated the Beijing quarter semis, semis and the final every time we trained on the bike, off the bike for every rep and effort. We practiced the scenario every day for 60 days!

We really focused on mutually exclusively attacking all the components needed for the Olympics. This meant the usual, power training in the gym, on the bike and on the track. We did this in typical periodization fashion. Periodization methods are nothing to new to sport but the trick is to use it wisely, see how the athlete responds and make adjustments. For Jill, she was on a linear periodized plan because she was always injured and that ACL was inhibiting her from making those power gains that I was planning for back in July 2007. For Mike, he was on a non-linear plan because he was already fast. So all we did was top off on what was already considered a good base. With minor adjustments to the plans, both athletes would find themselves feeling well prepared. Add a little bit of a taper and boom from the cannon, you go from Olympic Caliber ready to Olympic Medal caliber ready.

Beijing Time

There is so much I can talk about with the whole Olympic experience but for me I was just there to be there biggest fan. The medals really did come easy once they got there as they were prepared and ready for opportunity, had managed good karma, and kept a balance mindset. They understood their journey, their story of getting to Beijing (which was important). They knew that the road traveled that had the little bumps and the sharp turns, and intersections that enticed them to go another route had given them an opportunity to grow. They finally arrived, arrived as the complete ready athlete. Beijing was their graduation ceremony and this event was a celebration. We truly felt that way about it.

Olympic Finals

As I was an eye in the sky in the stands, we would communicate through phone between motos and finals (phone bill $800). Jill called me before her final and asks me what lane to pick, I say “it doesn’t matter because you’re prepared, go get that medal!” She says, “Ok G, this one is for you”. Bryn her boyfriend who was sitting next to me at the time asks me what she said and I told him she going to pick the most inside lane (that was the default plan for the week) no need to start thinking now. Gate drops and I just watched her try her best from dead last and she starts to do her thing, which was be a smart racer. She capitalized on a few crashes but she was the best prepared as the majority of the field seemed to lack any plan or instinct. When she exited the last turn in 3rd, I was yelling “we got a medal, we got a medal” and repeated this probably 10 more times before she actually crossed the line. I couldn’t believe it, all the suffering, all the pain, all the great training sessions paid off! The evaluation of our last 14 months came down to the last 14 pedals.

We all know that Jill isn’t the fastest nor does she posses the best skills in BMX, but one thing she does have over the rest is focus and determination. She is now known as Jill Kintner the Olympic Medalist!

One medal down, one more to go…

So Mike calls me after his semi and with an optimistic tone says “damn G, I left late in that semi, it was a quick one (the random cadence), I think I’m the number 4 pick which puts me between Nhalpo and Graves” I respond with “it doesn’t matter, you’re going to light those dudes up, no one is faster than you down that start hill” Mike agrees “alright man, it doesn’t matter what lane I take” (he was trained with the same philosophy as Jill).

Come final time Mike actually beats eventual Gold Medalist Strombergs into first corner but Maris had the inside, Mike then went for broke down the second straight to catch him but couldn’t land in the turn before him to make a move on the inside of turn two, Mike had to scrub speed and Maris was gone. Mike rode the last two straights well and finishes in front of Gold Medal favorite and coaches pick, Donny Robinson. Mike is now a known as an Olympic medalist! Time to go to Oprah.

Was I pumped?

To say I was pumped was an understatement. My mind was going crazy. All I can think of was the growing we did in the past year. I thought about the manifestation board I made putting Mike and Jill’s plans on a corkboard in front of my desk with a message that reminded me to make these dreams a reality. By far, this was one of my biggest jobs and achievements in life. Once again it was exciting to create a goal, make a plan, stick with the plan, execute it and do it on the worlds biggest stage in sport.

The tough part was the risk but what came with it was a huge reward! Taking two athletes dreams and literally making the dream come true is the best feeling in the world. Knowing that the Olympics only come every four years, and that in four years a lot can change, you begin to realize this is a one time chance to get the “*snap shot”.

*The snapshot is something I learned from a great coach Sue Enquist. I would reiterate in telling my athletes that you need to be a respect to your talent, BMX careers are a one time snap shot! Smile!

Recognition

The United States Olympic Committee had started a new Olympic Medal Coach program where it would be a way for coaches to be recognized for their efforts in preparing Olympic Medalist. And on behalf of Mike Day and Jill Kintner, they presented me with this medal called the “Order of Ikkos”. It says:

“It is a great honor for the United States Olympic Committee to bestow the Order of Ikkos medallion to you. It is a symbol of excellence in Coaching as represented by your athletes’ achievement as an Olympic Medalist. Your name will be added to the Honor Roll of the Order of Ikkos for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.”

Look at the lead Mike Day has just 2 cranks out of the gate! A half wheel on favorites Robinson, Suarez and Willers.

Dr. Gunter working on an eventual Olympic Medalist, tuning her up!

Jill and I at the BirdsNest after we seen Bolt walk to a world record in the 100m final. Sick.

In the upperdeck heading to Beijing, 3am in the morning, and Mike still looks pumped! Hitting up the flight attendants for some coffee and donuts!

Just another day in training, taking a break, talking about the plan of attack.

I seriously have well over 500 gate clips on my video camera.

Another day, another training session at the OTC. L-R Coach Romero, Kyle Bennett, Jason Richardson & Mike Day

One of our favorite places to train. Meadows Land. MLR Rules.

Reconfiguring Mike’s random start technique. Coach Romero using the tripod for dartfish overlays. Love the technology.

Traveling around the world chasing points to qualify. We’re about a year out from Beijing in this photo.

They didn’t think these guys could do it. Earned the automatics, heading to Beijing!

The day after. They looked like this the whole trip.

My Olympic manifestation board. Something I used as a tool when I use to compete.

Landrum

By Coach Greg Romero

There’s always a beginning to every story and in this case it was beautiful July Summer day in Santa Monica back in 2007 when Mike Day, Jill Kintner and I were at the Red Bull offices talking with the point man of athlete performance services for North America, Mr. Walshy. Walshy worked with a former USA federation associated with the USOC so he had the experience to let us know how things worked which for us, was a huge help. He proposed we do this right as he seen it done before. Long story short, he expressed what he wanted to see and we all came up with a plan, he added a lot to it and boom, we came up with an agreement: Let’s maximize Jill Kintner’s and Mike Day’s chances of getting them some Olympic hardware. (Thanks Walshy, I can’t express the gratitude enough for all your help and most importantly for believing in this group!)

Red Bull has always been renown to support their athletes 100%. In an industry where sub-contracted athletes are typically compensated for the exchange of promoting a brand, the athlete usually gets a paycheck and a good luck handshake. Not with Red Bull, they want to know if their investment has a plan. And if you don’t have one, they will be happy to assist. At first I didn’t believe it, I rode for top companies and never did any of them offer assistance in accomplishing my goal as they figure “we are paying you, go use that money for assistance” (in which I never had a problem with really). Anyhow, with the possibility of having both of their BMX racing athletes medal at the Olympic Games, it was a no brainer when it came to support: Throw the kitchen sink at Mike Day and Jill Kintner! For me, this meant a job to take care of these athletes and hands on manage the day-to-day application of making this ridiculous goal happen. So without Red Bull, as a coach, I couldn’t of pulled off qualifying two underdog athletes and then going to get them medals. It was not going to happen with the rest of the world stepping up with impressive programs.

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The Olympics is not every 4 years it’s everyday!