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The beginning of one other yr on the World Cup means one other season in Europe for American tech skier Nina O’Brien. For the primary time within the 23-year-old’s profession, O’Brien considers herself a top-15 GS skier after persistently scoring not solely in GS, but in addition in slalom and parallel. Along with her 2021-22 season opener days away, O’Brien is longing for strong early outcomes that may construct momentum all the best way to what’s going to seemingly be her Olympic debut in February.
Reflecting on the earlier season, O’Brien attributes a lot of her World Cup success to the prep interval. In a summer time of uncertainties and restricted journey as a result of COVID-19 restrictions, extra time and focus was spent within the health club than ever earlier than. It was an method she replicated forward of the 2021-22 season, taking a full three months off snow for power and conditioning. After a profitable spring camp in California in Could, O’Brien didn’t return to snow till Saas-Payment in late August. It was the primary summer time she had not spent in school or in Park Metropolis, however at dwelling, all whereas following her coach’s day by day program and sustaining an internship with a personal fairness agency in Denver.
O’Brien additionally continued taking on-line courses for Dartmouth. As soon as she began her internship, she balanced two-a-day exercises between a nine-to-five job, usually together with a 5 a.m. wakeup for her first health club session earlier than work, after which dealing with rush-hour visitors on the finish of the day earlier than her second health club session. In the meantime, teammates Paula Moltzan, AJ Damage, and Keely Cashman would ship Snapchat updates to at least one one other with exercise evaluations, a constant motivator as her teammates have been doing the identical exercises all throughout the nation. By the point she attended the primary camp at Saas-Payment in mid-August, O’Brien was shocked at her capability to leap proper again into her GS snowboarding.
“I’m somebody who often takes a number of days to get issues going,” she stated. “I’m usually half asleep and jet lagged the primary few days, so it usually takes me a while to rise up to hurry. However I felt like I obtained my GS feeling again fairly rapidly, after which from there, our entire group felt like we have been snowboarding properly and had some good tempo.”
O’Brien maintained momentum all through the whole prep interval, progressing into an indoor-slalom session after Saas-Payment earlier than heading again to Saas-Payment and Soelden previous to the season opener. On a regular basis spent in Europe is a optimistic for O’Brien, who believes coaching throughout totally different European venues prepares her finest for an extended season of racing in Europe. Versatility in venues, lane selections, snow, and terrain have been a optimistic for O’Brien, who reiterates that her coaching ought to set her up properly for Soelden, particularly in the case of tactical deal with breakovers.
“For me, breakovers are at all times one thing I’m making an attempt to get higher at,” O’Brien stated. “So anytime there’s a transition from flat to steep, steep to flat, that’s an excellent place for me to verify I’m on my recreation. Soelden, you by no means actually know the place you’re at as a result of it’s the primary race of the season. Clearly, I’ve had a style of fine GS outcomes and know the place I wish to be, however on the identical time it’s a little bit of a thriller for me, at the very least the primary race.”
Final yr, O’Brien had the identical unsure method getting into Soelden, conserving open expectations realizing she was feeling robust and assured in coaching. She completed fifteenth, which kickstarted her season’s trajectory to extra top-15 and top-10 outcomes throughout three disciplines, and a second-place GS run behind teammate Mikaela Shiffrin on the world championships. This yr, she hopes to proceed her momentum by specializing in her finest snowboarding, which she believes is nice sufficient to compete in opposition to one of the best on the planet, whereas not spending an excessive amount of time getting hung up on outcomes.
“I’m not somebody who needs to deal with outcomes, or at the very least I’m making an attempt to not overthink that,” stated O’Brien. “I believe in all my breakthrough races I had final yr, and even earlier than I used to be snowboarding World Cup, was after I was focusing extra on the snowboarding and never overthinking simply the outcomes. That’s the perspective I’m making an attempt to carry into this season as properly.”
O’Brien is first to confess the problem of acting at a excessive stage, how attaining high outcomes brings increased expectations to proceed to carry out on the identical stage, or larger. When she focuses solely on her finest snowboarding, she is assured to assault each run and skis her quickest. Feeling assured going into Soelden, O’Brien believes her GS snowboarding is choosing up and is worked up to kick off the season.
“I’m making an attempt to take issues one step at a time proper now,” expressed O’Brien. “There’s a full World Cup season to race, and proper now that’s proper across the nook.”
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