I can still
vividly remember my first speed race. I was a first year J4. The race was at
Snowbasin, Utah. I think I was racing on a pair of 155 GS skis, which for me
was big. It was the first full divisional race of the season. This meant that
it was a qualifier for J4 Festival, a race I desperately wanted to attend even
though as a first year the odds were stacked against me. I don’t remember much
about the skiing but I do remember the devastation. We pulled off two Super G
races and I placed in the late teens in both races.
Now I can
almost hear your brain going ‘come on you were devastated about placing in the
late teens!’ But I was devastated. Now to put this in perspective in those days
I felt pretty confident about getting a podium any time I made it down the
hill. But that day at Snowbasin I remember looking at the scoreboard and giving
up trying to figure exactly how I finished because there were too many names
with times better than mine.
Now looking
back on this loss I can pinpoint two reasons that I wasn’t good at speed then.
For one those 155 GS skis probably weren’t the best and I had probably skied on
them once. The other reason that I will mention is that I was small. Now
looking at me now you probably wouldn’t have guessed but back then I was short
and skinny. My birthday is in January but in a two year age bracket that still
meant I was at least a year younger than most of the kids on the course. This
brings up one of the interesting points of ski racing. Does relative age
matter?
By relative
age, I mean where your birthday falls within the age group in which you
compete. If age groups are by calendar year, as in ski racing, then kids
born in January will be eleven months older than the kids born in December of
the same birth year. But statistical analysis shows that for ski racing,
the short answer is no, relative age doesn't matter. If you were simply looking
for the answer to that question then you can stop reading here. If we were
talking about hockey then the answer would be yes -- being born early in an age
group, being a little bigger (on average) than your competitors makes a
difference -- and below I will talk about why ski racers have managed to avoid
this relative age problem that cuts many out of sports like hockey and soccer.
Successful
ski racers at young ages are often born in the first half of the year. But this
differential disappears by the world cup level with slightly more athletes born
in the second half of the year. So why are ski racers able to overcome this
disparity while it persists in hockey all the way through to the NHL level? I
think that part of the answer has to do with the difference between team and
individual sports. In team sports a team is chosen and only those who are on
that team get to play. So if coaches select the bigger, better coordinated kids
who were born a little earlier, then they get better training opportunities and
become stronger hockey players. In ski racing youth qualifier races are
scarce and training is open to anyone with the financial means to participate.
While there may be some favoritism by coaches the good kids will become good at
their own pace, working on their skills until they grow physically and
mentally.
But losing
also makes you fight. After my first Super G series the fear of inferiority
pushed me to train harder than I had ever done before. I honed in my focus and
went for the win more in the next race. If you truly want to be good at
something and you are not, then you need to work that much harder to try to
overcome your inabilities. Luckily the younger kids will get bigger and older
and when they do they will be that much better than the other kids because they
will have been working harder and getting better out of fear that they aren’t
good enough. Whereas the kids who are fast just because they were older
and bigger will not keep working on their skills and improving their skiing.
So if
you
are one of those kids or a parent of a kid born in the second half of
the year don't cry or give up. If you work hard you will catch up and
the work you put in fighting will pay off in the results. You may
actually be at an advantage if only you can keep working long enough to
see it.
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