Michael Johnson Downhill Skier - BBC Inside Sport Special

so what makes these competitors risk life and limb in the pursuit of glory this is my quest to understand more about a breed of sportsmen I have a deep respect for some of the most complex and daring athletes of all downhill racers fact one this is a dangerous sport you recently in the mountain at 90 miles an hour it feels like you're flying a jet fighter speed is what gets them off it turns them off pushing the limits how far how far can you go if you do mistake they could have big consequences I broke twice legs upper legs in the lower tibia and fibia my eat the ramen it was finished I tipped around and landed on my neck my ski fell off and cut me really deep if you have fear when you're on the run then you're in big big trouble you get that one shot to go out there and and go for it if you're starting to crash there's not much you can do I'll come to the Alps to meet the best downhill racers in the world I'm here to try and understand a competitive world that is so different to my own I can relate to the rush of adrenaline from competition what it's like to perform on an Olympic stage and to carry the hopes of a nation for me this was the attraction to my sport downhill racing has all these factors but there's one simple difference to track and filled I was never putting my life at risk so what is the lure of downhill for me when I was a kid it was a mystic mystic quest mystic heavens I was dreaming about Joe Bergin malaya clemmer it was named like for me it was a hero like like Superman and I was not dreaming to do to be a fireman or policeman I wanted to be a Don you know when I was a child I'd like to to make jumps I think when I was so high I had the feeling when I jumped five mates it had a huge jump like 20 meters but I almost liked that that feeling as soon as I started to go fast I realized that that was the that was what I wanted to do this is the first time I've met any downhill racers they all seem like normal characters on the surface but in truth they are a breed apart you know everyone's got a screw loose or something like that and that they're they're quite wild they're out there a downhill racer there's a certain the certain thing that takes a downhill racer Tomica don't hurry so you've got to be willing to put yourself in these situations the true downhillers are they have a little bit of craziness I mean they like to scare themselves these guys doesn't matter if it's on skis or in a car or on a row Dolores you know a tray they like to scare themselves and they like to go fast they like the the extreme thrill and the extreme adrenaline flow not only because of their personality but very much because of the way that they need a stronger or a higher level of arousal generally skiers tend to be larger than life characters who drive too fast who drink occasionally too much who you know who womanizing to go out in bars and stuff you know that is that that is your character of a ski racer I could've done that perhaps that behavior is a form of release getting up close and personal to a downhill course has made me appreciate the focus this sport requires good lord it's pretty steep a lot more than I thought it would be you know when you're skiing you used to be unable to stop I don't think I'd be able to stop I mean once you're going down you're going down you need something special to conquer a mountain like this as a normal and even well-trained skier with good skills you are never able to do what these guys are doing you could not even slide down one of these race courses because they are specially prepared for their capabilities Franz Klammer of Austria will the gamble pay off it's brutal you go in the starting gate it's just diving down in nothing to meet the dangers of this sport are obvious but to the races crashes appear to be a part of the job something they have come to accept I never really had bad crash but I broke twice legs upper legs and the lower tibia and fibia and there was one on a jump I went for too far with my my my body weight in the back and I catch the air and Anand on my back and by landing there her legs went broken I jumped 50 meters of the track with hundred K so I was kind of semi-paralyzed I couldn't talk for two days and so on but everything came back I wasn't seriously hurt I remember exactly was so fast there but it was a big mistake for sure I lost the outside ski and it was like a champ I got up into the air and then I thought maybe it's possible to ski again but maybe I'm losing a little bit of time but it's it's not a big problem but I was tend to faster feet they were going up further further and I saw the snow and that's right only to prepare for the crash and I was very very lucky there was a little bit softer snow that was very important for me first aid was not possible for me to walk again very a swollen knee and it was very hard and I was thankful there was no race at the next state but there was a race two days later surely schemed to gold in the super-g and he takes everyone his teammate hands can oust by point six one he doesn't just win he wins by huge distances Maya showed incredible physical and mental strength to even enter the race but what he achieved that day is one of sports great comebacks there is no set pattern to dealing with adversity in this sport unlike Hermann Maier Scot McCartney does not talk about his crash instead he focuses on the recovery the positive I can relate to McCartney's need to block kids bill 2008 from his memory I would want to forget this too let's come back on in the United States of America stands at the top of the greatest downhill job I was pushing out onto the mouse a photo section it was a surreal experience I was actually above the finish area the sky was coming down he was having really good splits he he nailed the side hillock it's peel so that when you when you nail that turn you're gonna come down the chute with a house it was his birthday 70,000 people on the finish singing happy birthday to you when it happened I was with my wife and the children we were pushing them up to watch the reefs in the finish area and we could hear this gas of 50,000 people in the finish area and you could tell something's not right crashes are a part of ski racing but to see someone that you just that you know when you're a great friend and you don't know for their well-being you really don't know how bad it is I mean it could be as bad as it gets there are real challenges and being a downhill racer to come back from that not only Scott but everyone else watching the reasons got to reach that deep you see anybody pull back you know as a result of that in the next couple of days in the race itself we had two athletes in start gate behind Scott and both of those athletes were affected in different ways one of them definitely backed off and was just skiing downhill ski defensive didn't have a very good day on the other said you know what I understand that happen but I'm gonna go out there and give it my all and he was able to when he went out of the gate was confident his abilities to charge and attack the mountain and to be able to do that in that situation is it shows the mental toughness of some of these guys that's when you realize what that hill means to you you know that's I can see with my own eyes how dangerous it is I've just watched my me get taken off the hospital and and what does Dino mean to me right now do I want to do this do I want to take that risk and then if you're real downer the answer is yes it's this attitude that sets downhill races apart from the rest of us McCartney suffered horrific head injuries that day in an effort to control the swelling on his brain doctors had to put him in an induced coma it was nine months before he returned to the sport it was long it was a long road and you know it took longer like I kind of thought I was back getting back into races at the beginning of the following season and really you know it it it was the kind of thing where you you think you're going for it again you think you're charging and you look at your video and you're kind of like passive in the back seat kind of sucking there's like I'm not quite there you know you kind of compare yourself to other racers you compare yourself to what you've been in the past and you realize that you're you're a little bit tentative I have a great deal of admiration for McCartney's bravery and mental strength how he can reconcile a crash like that and still have the desire to carry on amazes me this goes against every natural instinct we have extreme states of panic and fear are a battle between two different parts of the brain so the skill at the skier needs to have is to be able to to overcome these primitive parts of the brain to suppress these automatic fear responses primitive responses that deal with the sorts of threats that we experience in in our evolutionary history and that part of the brain battles against parts of the brain which are trying to gain control of our actions trying to get us to make rational decisions in effect succumbing to panic causes us to lose control and of course our brain never evolved to deal with the sorts of threat associated with losing control on a ski slope when the bad lights there when you can't see from the sky to the snow so you can't see the texture of the snow and when it's getting bumpy and challenging and dangerous and you know it's dangerous so you've got to overcome that and want to go faster and if you're tentative rather than positive you're much more danger to yourself you know they can get hurt when you back off I mean you have to attack the hills and ski aggressively so when you back off when the skier backs off and he feels that fear he puts himself at greater danger yeah for sure no is that you just you tense up you don't you don't work with the mail you don't ski the mountain you lose the feeling in the snow usually the biggest risk and down house is going at it and being defensive the best form of defence in downhill is to attack because when you're going from flats to steeps you have to move forward and it's really counterintuitive everything that's your natural instinct is screaming for you to sit back to shy away from this thing but what you have to do is you have to push forward you have to go with the terrain you have to have that right mental attitude and if you if you're negative then you're actually in more risk of injuring yourself being in the right state of mind is essential because there's no margin for error in this sport the consequences of a mistake can cost you so much and I'm not talking valuable seconds skiing for me it's not just a chop it was also a philosophy I was really young so it's with three years I was beginning skiing a little trial like this and yeah I grew up here in the mountain in Lancer high day and that's normal that you're beginning skiing with three or four years and sixteen years old I was on the Junior World Championships and there I see I can go maybe up to a world champion to go for an Olympic medal and this moment was for me really important because there was a big goal in my heart I was thinking I want to go for Olympic gold I was really fit yeah so it was my season I was thinking now you can get it I can reach what I want as a little child and full-speed the top of the course of its paying off for in point three six I know everything on this day and with thousand thousand time times to go down there I make one time this mistakes Oh nasty crap I was maybe 10 meters from the net with hundred and ten kilometer per hours so that makes suck and then of course I was thinking now come the the heat from the net and push me back to the to the slope but it doesn't come somewhere on the other side of there is silvano belt romantic and fingers crossed he's okay traveling at 70 miles per hour Belgium a detour straight through the safety netting and collided with rocks on the other side and after this a long long time you have to fight I had my family in the front of my head my friends and I want to keep with them I want to keep in this life and I will not go away from this life in Grenoble after maybe one and a half hours the Swiss doctor told me Silvana you've broken the back like this you will not have a chance to walk it was really hard so in this moment you you know really down and you don't know do you have nothing under control for me was really clear that I have to think about my new life and what can you do in the wheelchair what can you do in your new life and this was like before as a child and my wish it was to go for a limpid game to go for a world champion just in a different way how I can reach this vision how I can be in my life again happy and it needs time needs friends to do new things and today after eight years I can say I'm really happy in my life and I'm really back in my life you can see the mental resilience of a downhill racer still there in belgium Metis this toughness has been key to his recovery but it's not just a physical injury that can change a ski racers life we can crush hard and it's part of the sing in a for sure form it's part of the history because of my history because three weeks before I wasn't a big champion in 2006 Antoine's in areas reached the pinnacle of his sport he was Olympic downhill champion for just three weeks after getting his gold medal Denarius suffered a crash so bad that he can no longer face his fears well you can see that actually in the fence ISM and music my admit and then completely knocked down yeah Wow so no I'm nothing but there was not really no physical sure I was sure so what happened it was actually it was a I got injured in my brain it was like a some singer something in my opinion my brain like the the dry was broken and there is still there is no I can't really remember as a crash actually I got my memory back maybe alpha novel after and then I got really scared because it was like a it it woke me up and I suit about all my career I bear suit about the gold medal and and my family I thought about everything and then I got scared because I swooped up actually it's it's really a crazy sport before 1012 years I was racing in World Cup you're not really thinking about the risk but then with that then does it take a special person because I would always be thinking about the risk but that cross it it was like I was a I woke up and I saw there is a lot of risk and it's don't ruse and if you start thinking about the risk that you use you start to think that after that jump you can crush and finish in the Fancy's you have to stop because you have no chance my coach Jay was saying you should you should not watch it it's it's really bad and you get delirious still had the physical ability to carry on racing this injury was psychological his capacity to cope with fear had gone as a direct result of that crash the Olympic champion quit downhill racing for good this is a sport where the spectators can enjoy the mistakes more than the successes perhaps the question I should be asking myself is not why do they do it but why do we want to watch it people want to watch the spectacular and crashes are spectacular but I think spectacular for me is people getting right up to the edge getting so close that it's so risky and then recovering I'm wondering if the fans you know just appreciate the sport more because they know that it is a huge risk and what these guys are doing is extremely dangerous which obviously gives them some more they no appreciation for no I agree but I think that there's like a limit there I think like they enjoy the action where like someone crashes new or like oh my god that's amazing but it's not that fun if they have to stop the race and they have to bring in the damn lens these scaly razors these athletes they are very smart guys nobody pushes them out of the start gate but our duty is to put together some kind of guarantee for them that they can rely on the safety or on the safe as possible conditions we can deliver so that they can perform on the highest level you can't make downhill risk-free I don't see it's not possible you can't make motorsport risk-free it's not possible and if it was grass free would people watch it as much probably not we'll always have danger and a great example is Danny Albert last year either crash he took on the same jump that Scott took two years ago they lowered the jump the jump was flat it was even it was perfectly built in Danny Albert knocked himself out himself a coma for several weeks so it's just it's just part of it it's part of sports I'm gonna you have to accept the risks there's some risk maybe people get the feeling that alpine ski racing is a safe sport and only something is missing alpine ski racing boss never will never be a safe sport there is so much risk in it I think every racers who is on the start he thinks I have everything under control and I will not have a crash but sometimes like me with my life it happens that you make a little bad mistake on the bed in a bad time and then yeah I started out thinking these men were fearless but what I've come to realize is that they feel fear just like the rest of us there are moments the a downhill racer is afraid he will never tell you that while he's a racer but after his career he will tell you yes I was afraid one sink BEC like it was yesterday and there was standing up in the starting hut and I thought these guys are crazy so I'm not going to do that and actually I was in my pants I said this is this is what I'm not doing it's the ability to channel and control that emotion that makes these guys so special always when I approach that section where I crashed it's like you know my heart is racing and I'm just you kind of want to stop actually but you know you know you know I can stop but it would be kind of nice just to pull over and like okay if you stop them that's it's because it's like barriers you have to get over them they learn how to deal with it the focus with motivation they don't think about the risk you know the thrill outweighs the risk gotta overcome the fear of it and you've got a challenge yourself you're going down 90 miles an hour plus you've got to want to go faster I've come to understand that a fundamental part of being a downhill racer is not being fearless but understanding fear learning how to cope with it and using it in a positive way it's not pure physical ability that makes champions it's having the right mental approach these sportsmen take it to another level through this fear you create also some respect to the racehorse and I say no no down here racer even the best ones in the world would be able to take the challenge of a road Cup downhill course if there would be no fear no respect which gives them the right behavior that's why I ski so fast to overcome fear it's over sooner our Winter Olympic coverage starts on bbc2 on Saturday so

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Keywords: yt:stretch=16:9, Michael Johnson (TV Personality), Michael, Johnson, skiing, downhill, Olympics, Vancouver, 2010, Sochi, 2014, Winter Olympics, Finlay Mickel (Olympic Athlete), documentary, Graham Bell (Athlete), Aksel Lund Svindal (Olympic Athlete), Didier Cuche (Olympic Athlete), Antoine Deneriaz, Sasha Rearick, Rhonda Cohen, Guenter Hujara, Franz Klammer (Olympic Athlete), Hermann Maier (Olympic Athlete), Scott Macartney (Olympic Athlete), Alpine Skiing (Sport), Ski

Id: 8zBgeGLXoi4

Length: 27min 57sec (1677 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 07 2014