Dottir by Katrin Davidsdottir

Author:Katrin Davidsdottir
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

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Athletes and coaches gathered around the big-screen televisions strewn throughout the warm-up area to watch the earlier heats. Many of the women in my heat watched as well. Being in the final heat is an advantage because they always save the best for last. Going last means you can glean successful strategies or make last-minute adjustments to event strategies based on what did or did not work for earlier heats.

The other advantage was you were competing head to head with the fittest women at the Games. There was no guesswork about where you stacked up. We would only take the floor this one final time. One of us was going to win this thing.

I skipped the TVs, but I did watch the women in the warm-up area. There was only one pegboard, so we were forced to take turns. All the women were struggling with the exception of Amanda Goodman, who would compete in the third heat, and Margaux Alvarez, who would take the floor with me. At least it’s possible, I told myself. I’ve surprised myself before when the rush of adrenaline in my bloodstream took over on the competition floor.

There was so much excitement in the venue that it would pulse in waves to where we were standing backstage. Deafening roars erupted from the crowd each time an athlete advanced to their next station in the chipper. I imagine this was what street level must have sounded like outside the Coliseum in ancient Rome.

When the first heat of women advanced to Pedal to the Medal 2, I overheard a group of girls recapping what they had seen: No woman had completed a single repetition on the pegboard. Information taken from the competition floor can often be misleading, if not downright destructive, but I found this nugget to be very useful. Had I not known that the pegboard had decimated the early heats, I might have adopted a much different strategy. I went to Ben to talk about it.

“You need to get out there and you have to make one pegboard,” Ben told me as we hashed out our game plan.

It would have sounded like a very modest goal, except for the fact that I had been completely unsuccessful with the movement so far, and the way the first heat had fared against it.

“You perform the best when you’re on the field. Go out there and figure it out. If you can’t figure it out in the first two minutes, you stop and rest, that’s it.”

I was surprised by this suggestion, but it really was the way the weekend had played out. I was exceeding my expectations in almost every way once I took the competition floor. Ben gave me one final piece of advice on strategy.

“On the handstand push-ups in part 1, be smart. If you can get off of those handstand push-ups first, it’s your workout.”

There was an intensity in his gaze that I hadn’t seen before. We both knew I was in a position to win the whole thing, but neither of us acknowledged it.

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