They sent me an article from the Norwegian website TV2. As a result, over the past two years, five young Norwegian biathletes have committed suicide. The statistics are terrible, especially considering that there are only a little over a thousand biathletes in the country. I agree with one of the conclusions of the authors of the article and have long wanted to address this topic.
Elite sport imposes very great obligations. Constant pressure. It doesn’t matter if you are a Norwegian or Russian athlete. The typical career of a young athlete on the cusp of the junior national team looks like this: mom and / or dad played this sport themselves or a loved one (skiing, biathlon), and they see you as a continuation of their success. They want you to move forward, avoid their mistakes and, above all, “feed” on their experience. Such parents run with their child on the ski slope in the literal sense: they worry, push, control everything. As a rule, they send them to equally ambitious coaches.
How many “involved” parents and coaches have I seen, trashing their athlete during a regional competition between junior and intermediate girls or boys! “We didn’t buy mom a fur coat so we could buy you normal skis, but how are you going to run?!” Do you think such screams after the finish line are fantasies? Alas! Come to regional or zonal competitions and listen for yourself. This is what a 15-16 year old skier (biathlete) should feel after such a disguise, and even public?
And another related aspect. The national team coaches have not yet written a message in capital letters to their colleagues who work with young talents: don’t force it! Let the kids go for walks, play outdoor games, and work on their technique. And then we, the students, come to the training camps in Malinovka or Tyumen and see how 12-13 year olds run there in circles like crazy, overtaking us to the joyful shouts of their coaches. I understand that children’s and junior coaches are also ambitious people and their work is evaluated in one way or another by the number of champions they have prepared. But it’s impossible ! Endless pressure, the habit of shouting and even slightly humiliating children and adolescents will not bring anything good.
The simplest example to give is yours. My parents were not professionally involved in ski racing; they sent me to the cross-country section only because it was the closest to my house and I was seven years old, I had a lot of energy. Nobody even thought of skiing as a career. No one demanded results. Only now I understand how lucky I was with Pyotr Maksimovich [Яковлевым] and all other first coaches. They didn’t rush, didn’t push, didn’t try to “raise their ambitions.” In Kamchatka we didn’t have any big stars among skiers or biathletes – although we were lucky. No one said: “But Masha, at your age, has already become a master of sports!” I was just skiing for fun. Published in the section, not purchased by mom and dad.
The first real ambitions began to emerge when the opportunity arose to board the last car of the train to the Junior World Championships in January 2019. Well, that’s how it was when I was almost 18 years old. Full capacity already presupposes ambitions, life plans and the ability to listen to criticism – if it is constructive. But now I know for sure that I came to the main team with a good reserve of development potential, not driven like a horse and not tired of skiing – for this special thanks to Artemy Gelmanov and Egor Nemtinov, the coaches of the junior team.
The talent of the coaches, your own talent, technical support, discipline, all this is very important. But my most important asset is calm. Calm and confident. I don’t worry before the race and I don’t worry after the end, whatever it is. Success means everything goes as planned. Fail: “The learning process is in progress”. This is one of my favorite quotes, Sergei Pavlovich Korolev reported it to the Politburo of the USSR when he made mistakes and accidents.
I never understood people who take part in a race as a battle. Perhaps this is how it should be in martial arts, but in cyclical sports, at first you need to be calm as ice inside and smile at everyone outside. Any attempt at motivation from the outside is surprising and boring. It doesn’t matter who it comes from: parents, beloved man, coach…
Compete, endure, give your all. And I know what I need and how. If I need it, I’ll ask for it. Coaches, of course, can give advice – run this way, rest here, etc., but they don’t need to trick me. Luckily, they don’t even try.
Are you upset by the result? If the problem was objective – for example, the pole was broken or the skis were “smeared” by the military, then it is not your fault. And if it is yours, then you need to analyze it again, with a cool head, emotions are not necessary in the “debriefing”.
Let’s return to the suicide statistics among young Norwegian biathletes that shocked me so much. I’ve never heard of this here and I hope I never hear of it.
Maybe the families there take out bank loans secured by future millions on the ski slopes, I don’t know. But I confidently say that pressuring a teenager is a bad idea, both in Norway and in Russia.
Do you really want great results? Leave your skier alone, respect their privacy and let them be themselves. And then everything will work out, I promise.
Source : MatchTV
I am Sandra Jackson, a journalist and content creator with extensive experience in the news industry. I have been working in the news media for over five years. During this time, I have worked as an author and editor at various outlets producing high-quality content that attracts readers from different demographics.
