As the countdown to the Olympic Games now begins to be tallied in short weeks, not months, many teams start to head off for big work and altitude camps. However, before those days of hard slog begin come two major rites of passage for an Olympic athlete – the official team announcement, and the “Kitting Out” day.
The team announcement day will usually be the time when athletes get their first chance to wear the Olympic rings. For those racing at their first Games, this will feel like a momentous occasion, a time to celebrate everything they have done to get to this point.
For the British rowers, they will have received one outfit’s worth of Team GB kit to wear that day. Unless of course, it was like my announcement year, where we were given a generic Team GB polo shirt, and then told to wear our British Rowing tracksuit bottoms, but to bring some black electrical tape to cover the name of the non-Olympic sponsor on them. Very smart!
That one outfit will pale compared to what is coming next, the full kit-out session. This is one of the days that all new Olympians look forward to. First, you drive to a large conference centre, with warnings to not share the car with too many people as you will be coming home with a LOT of luggage. You then enter this huge space, all decked out with Team GB paraphernalia, all the way from the pictures on the walls down to the Union Flag pillows on the sofas.
After checking in, you are ushered through a maze of “shopping” areas and changing rooms, where you see the kit for the first time and get to try it all on for size. Aside from the general gear, you get your sport’s specific kit, as well as more extras than you can imagine – shoes, bags, hats, and the all-important opening and closing ceremony outfits (plug-in flashing shoes anyone?). Lastly, everything gets packed up for you into multiple bags, and you are spat back out into the cold light of day, wondering where on earth you are going to keep all this.
After my kitting-out day, I returned to my family home for a party my family had thrown for me. This included them hanging a very large Union Flag outside the front of our house – perhaps fine at any other time, but coming just a few days after the Brexit referendum result was announced, unfortunately, might have drawn some unwanted attention to us. But for me, this opportunity to see friends and family was so well timed, as it would be the last time I would get to be with many of them until after the Games. Shortly after this day, our summer camps began.
Whilst some teams favour high-altitude camps to help physiologically prepare their bodies for the big race, others stick with classic sea-level venues. For my crew that meant Breisach in Germany, followed by Varese, Italy.
These weeks away with your crew allow you to escape away from the commotion and fuss at home (with the exception of some short media visits), and focus back in on your crew, and how you are going to make the boat go faster. Training programmes are approached almost as a mini year’s cycle – you start with big weights, long rows, and low-rate pieces, before moving towards shorter outings, race pace work, and lots of practice starts.
Off the water, this time away with your team allows you to continue moulding your crew identity, to learn about how you each deal with pressure, and how you can best communicate when the stress mounts.
Afternoons off are filled with whatever activity you can come up with, from birthday picnics to mini-golf (where everyone is shocked to discover that all along your seven-seat has actually been a champion golfer!).
Whilst the days on those camps often felt long, the weeks felt very short, and towards the end, you could feel the Olympics hurtling towards you at a million miles an hour. From that point on, it becomes even harder to hold your focus on what you can control, and not get distracted by the circus building around you.
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