After the women’s downhill, won by Jasmine Flury, the men’s queen event and last speed race, closes, on Sunday, the first week of the Courchevel-Méribel world championships.
In the starting gate, time stops for a moment that can last an eternity. Hands clinging to the poles, head aligned with the back, a long and powerful inspiration through the nose, then a sharp exhalation through the mouth. This time, there is no question of backing down, he is ready to risk his life. Because measuring yourself against a real descent in alpine skiing is also that: facing the risks, and above all controlling them, to transform your fear into an essential ally.
If the descenders belong to a “species” apart in the environment, it is as much for their physical as for their psychological dimension. To set off on an icy slope at an average of more than 30% and sometimes exceed 140 km/h on spatulas about twenty centimeters wide, “You have to put your brain down, stop thinking too much and send everything“, warns our consultant and triple winner of the globe of the specialty, Luc Alphand, particularly playful about the expression of “crazy downhill”.
“A Speed Chromosome”
Today, downhillers all give this impression of letting go when they hurtle down the slopes of the world circuit. Still just as committed, Sofia Goggia, the double title holder of the globe of the specialty, has also paid once again for her “madness”, Saturday February 11, on the occasion of the women’s descent of the Worlds in Méribel. If the Italian is reputed to be one of the most committed skiers on the circuit, it is also because she is, like her rivals or male counterparts, in perpetual search of adrenaline.
“Because you like speedsimply justifies our consultant and Olympic downhill champion in 2002, Carole Montillet. Me, I was a little bored on the small turns of the slalom. It’s not the same feelings at all. This incredible feeling of the wind on you, the feeling of imbalance and vibrations that you feel at 130 or 140 km/h.” This love for speed often comes from the athlete’s DNA, “of a speed chromosome” as Luc Alphand likes to call him. “It depends on the profiles, there are several”, slice more Xavier Fournier-Bidoz, the manager of the men’s speed of the Blues.
“There are those who like to go fast, it’s in their blood. For others, it comes a little later. But one thing is certain: to go fast, you need a state of mind and not be afraid. There are always kids who are more calloused and daredevil than others.”
Xavier Fournier-Bidoz, head of men’s sprint for the French teamat Franceinfo: sports
This was not necessarily the case for circuit veteran Johan Clarey, five podiums in Kitzbühel (Austria) and an Olympic silver medal in Beijing last winter, “started from the slalom at the base“and who was” not a suicide bomber at all“. At 42, he continues to “have a lot of fun“, thanks to the public in particular, but this season will be his last. If Xavier Fournier-Bidoz explains his incredible longevity by “his exceptional mental strength”the “grandpa” of the Blues admits that controlling his fear “became super difficult”. “Some days it’s super hard, I can’t get over it. Mornings, I’ve already wondered what I was doing there at 42even admits Johan Clarey. Those days, I’m going to go a little more ‘piano’. It really asks a lot of me! And that’s why I quit at the end of the season.”
Fear, the friend who can become the worst enemy
Here, the experienced French skier highlights an issue that causes many headaches for downhillers throughout their career: how to master your fear? When all is well, “you accept fear, it’s part of the lot”, recalls Carole Montillet. Much easier said than done. “There were times, in the winter, in certain races, I couldn’t get past all that,” confides the other veteran of the Blues, Adrien Théaux (38), bronze medalist in super-G at the Beaver Creek Worlds (United States) in 2015.
“It depends on how the race is going. If there are a lot of crashes, it’s a lot harder for me to take it. It’s mental work that demands a lot of me, and often it’s just when where I am in the gate.”
Adrien Théaux, member of the French speed teamat Franceinfo: sports
Because in the end, it is often with their backs to the wall – no pun intended – and faced with the danger that tracks like the Streif (in Kitzbühel, in Austria) or the Stelvio (in Bormio, in Italy) can represent, that these lovers of sliding manage to find the mental resources necessary to override it and hurtle down the slope at high speed. “We are all afraid, always, but the more we are afraid, the better it issays Luc Alphand, triple winner of the Kitzbühel downhill. What makes us go fast is when we send everything without asking questions. We will find our limits. Embracing risk is something that keeps us going.”
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The difficulty, or the right balance, is therefore located in the cursor of this desired limit. “You don’t think about the fatal thingassures our consultant. You think about falling. Because we don’t fall often, but when we fall, it hurts. So you are afraid of pain. But you never start to think you’re going to stay there, which is very rare in our sport, thankfully.” Since 1959, four French downhillers have died in competition or training, the last being David Poisson, on November 13, 2017, at the age of 35.
“You need a fear that does not go so far as to paralyze you. Fear is important and it is human. And it is this game that is interesting for a descender. It is to ‘deal’ with your emotions and learn to tame it all.”
Luc Alphand, France Télévisions consultant and former descenderFrance info: sports
When it all comes together – confidence, fitness and weather conditions – a downhiller may well and truly look crazy at first. The speeds achieved by Johan Clarey, Aleksander Aamodt Kilde and Vincent Kriechamyr, who will probably fight for the world title on Sunday February 12 after three days of reconnaissance and training on the Eclipse, are as impressive as they can seem dangerous. But behind this raw effort are by no means “unconscious”, those “do don’t last long“, as the veteran of the France team likes to recall.
It is therefore above all by the total mastery of one’s emotions and one’s fear, obviously supplemented by “years of training and physical work”, that a skier can become a great descender. Then, to get the performance and the gold medal that will make them touch the sky, it is undoubtedly the one who puts the most madness into their skiing who will raise their arms at the finish. The ultimate deliverance that makes them forget how scared they were.