Aim High by Tanni Grey-Thompson

Author:Tanni Grey-Thompson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Accent Press
Published: 2012-09-01T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FIVE

Making It Happen!

People are always interested in the details of my life and how I train. Like all athletes I have to look after myself and eat sensibly. On a typical day I’ll have toast or porridge for breakfast, with coffee; a sandwich and fruit for lunch, and pasta or rice in the evening. I’m not the best cook in the world!

My weakness is probably drinking too much coffee – my favourite is single shot grande caramel latte, from Starbucks. Ian laughs at me a lot because this is one thing that I am really fussy about.

I train six days a week so I need plenty of sleep and try to get to bed reasonably early.

People prepare and train in different ways but there are a few fixed realities in sport, which are the same for everyone.

First, you have a very limited time in which to achieve. You have to be gaining qualifying marks in your late teens or early twenties to be able to qualify for the national teams and then make it to major Games. You cannot go back. In many professions you can take a career break, or go back and re-sit exams, but you can’t go back to a Paralympics.

It is often said that one of the most important things an athlete can have is parents who can pass the right genes on to you. What is certainly true is that the time of year you are born can make a difference. At seventeen, for some sports, you can fail to make it to major Games, simply because you haven’t matured enough physically, mentally or emotionally. Six months either side can make a huge difference. The dates of the Olympics and Paralympics are set in stone. The same is true for World Championships, Commonwealth Games, and national and regional championships. They all play their part in the developmental ladder that athletes have to work through in order to compete at the ‘big’ ones. Some athletes jump a couple of steps, but most work from the bottom up, and the timing of those, in relation to an athlete’s age, can be crucial.

Athletes don’t have the power to change any of this, nor the date or timing of their events during the Games. You just have to fit in with what is there.

If you are aiming to win a gold medal at a major Games event (which is what team mates and sponsors want from you) then that is when you have to deliver. Not a week before or a week after. You can win every event in a championship season but the general public, sports administrators and the media will only remember who won the big one.

Second, no athlete has a right to win a medal. Athletes can go into major Games as favourite or underdog. But apart from the psychological benefits or disadvantages this might bring, on the day it is a split second of time that will decide who wins and who doesn’t. In Britain we love the underdog, the people who come from behind, or who deal well with adversity.

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