In some ways, that’s the story of my season – when I wasn’t making big mistakes, I was winning races and being on the podium. And when I made mistakes I was still fourth or fifth, just off the podium.
Obviously, you always want to win, but you want to win by skiing a race that you’re proud of and you feel like you really challenged yourself and left it all out there.
Some of them I probably would like. Some of my fans probably beat their wives or run over little kids and they just happen to watch me on TV and like the way I ski.
At this point in my career, I have the privilege of choosing my partners. In the beginning, you more or less take what comes in the door – or what matches up with your brand.
My team has been very unreceptive about the fact that I consistently show them that I train slightly differently than they do, that I consistently show them that I am in better shape for ski racing than anyone else on the team.
My grandfather was very into horse racing, and I found some of his old journals and got into it from there. It has a lot of parallels to skiing. It’s a fun lifestyle, being around the racetrack.
One of the really important things about the Olympics is, to enjoy yourself, you have to accept that it’s different and feed off the enthusiasm of everyone and the inspiration and hopefully that will elevate your performance.
