Life's New Hurdles by Colin Jackson

Author:Colin Jackson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Accent Press
Published: 2012-10-12T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seven

Snow, sharks and sambas

I didn’t like dancing. I’m terrified of water and I don’t much like the cold. Three of my next big challenges: Strictly Come Dancing, Celebrity Shark Bait and the Winter Olympics didn’t seem obvious career choices.

I had learnt to ski and learnt to ski well; the skill meant I could take holidays with friends from all parts of the world. Like everything I did, I worked hard and was very fortunate to have a good coach again in Bettina, my Swiss friend. I think the Swiss are born on skis. Some years before, I had given Bettina some athletics training and was quite hard on her, telling her to do things like pull-ups and dips. Now it was her turn for revenge! If I was King of the track, she was Queen of the mountains. In skiing you have to concentrate not just on technique but on natural surroundings. It’s you, two pieces of plastic strapped to your feet, a pole in either hand and a snowy steep slope. Get it wrong and you’re in trouble. Get it right and it’s one of the most wonderful, exhilarating experiences.

By now, I was getting more and more work covering summer athletics events, but when the Winter Olympics came around I thought I’d love to be a part of that. I begged Dave Gordon to let me to go. I had found this new passion, skiing, and I wanted to be there. I thought I could ski all day and then do a couple of reports. That was my idea of what it would be like. I was delighted that Steve Cram, another athlete who loves skiing, was also asked to go. (You wouldn’t believe that two track athletes who valued their legs so much would take up snow sports and love every minute. But skiing is about style, from your technique to your appearance. A catwalk is not the only place where you can see Chanel, Prada and Gucci.)

I expected a nice skiing holiday in Italy watching some great competitions. The reality was very different. In three weeks I got to ski for three hours, and the rest of the time I was Colin Jackson, the BBC reporter in the mountains. I had to learn about new sports and learn fast. Snowboarding, snowcross, the biathlon, slalom and the super G for men and women, were all new territory for me and luckily I loved it. I had to think and move quickly on my feet. I had to meet new athletes and find out their stories on snow.

Like the Swiss, the Austrians have a great Winter Olympic tradition and, at the time, they were the ones to beat. I was fortunate to have a friend who knew the Austrian ski team very well and, through him, I got some great interviews with them. Michaela Dorfmeister won the women’s downhill gold medal. My interview with her in pigeon German had her in stitches, but she was very kind and kept saying, ‘Very good’.

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