Canadians air out skeletons in closet
Sliding team expects top results after overcoming communication breakdown
In the ideal scenario, three strong Canadian women take turns plunging headfirst down a river of ice at hellacious speeds, cheer one another on with unmitigated glee, and pose regularly for group photos on World Cup podiums.
A couple of factors — or, more specifically, a couple of German sliders — could conspire to muddy the utopian vision. But team tension shouldn’t.
Canada’s premier female skeleton sliders, Elisabeth Vathje, Mirela (Mimi) Rahneva and Jane Channell, have taken the apparently necessary step of working with a sports psychologist over the summer to facilitate communication, build trust and create a more positive working environment.
“It was a little bit tricky last year,” Vathje said. “But it was also Mimi’s first year on the World Cup. Jane and I had worked together the two years prior and knew how each other worked. We just didn’t know how Mimi worked and didn’t know how to facilitate a conversation.
“So one thing led to another. Big snowball effect. By the end of the season, no one is talking to each other. It’s like, that’s not the best.”
Not unheard of among teammates across a wide spectrum of sports, certainly, but not the ideal scenario.
“You know when you’re in close proximity to anyone for that long of a period and thrown into a competitive environment, of course there are going to be some bumps in the road,” said Rahneva, a 29-year-old from Ottawa.
“I think the biggest thing we worked on this summer was having trust between each other and knowing that not any one of us has an ill wish for one another. So trust is a big thing. That’s covered and laid out. I think that’s huge. That everyone knows nothing is meant in a negative way.”
The sliders apparently now have a better idea of who needs time alone on competition days and who needs space on training days. And they continue taking steps, like chatting over coffee in Whistler, to maintain the new and improved dynamic.
“If something isn’t jibing, not working quite right, we can have these conversations so that we can go in as three strong women supporting each other, which is rare,” said Vathje, a 23-year-old who hails from Calgary.
“We’re not backstabbing. We’re not conniving. We’re not trying to make the other person do poorly, because at the end we are Team Canada and a medal for one of them is still a medal for Canada and that’s a win for all of us.
“We want all three of us doing our best, so we don’t want the stress between teammates to hold us back, because that’s ridiculous. It’s something we can control. So I’m glad we now have the tools we need to have those conversations so we can all get so much better.”
Together they represent an imminent breakout for the Canadian program. Rahneva won a gold, a silver and two bronze to finish third overall behind two Germans in last year’s World Cup standings. Vathje checked in with two gold and a fifth-place finish. Channell, a 29-year-old native of North Vancouver, struggled to regain her podium form from 2015-16, but still claimed 11th overall.
They expect results to improve, given the clearer atmosphere and the fact they are getting better off the start line and are more experienced at their craft. The first real test will come in Lake Placid in early November as the 2017-18 World Cup season kicks off.
“I hope we work together and we dominate on the World Cup circuit,” Rahneva said. “All three of us have tremendous potential. We all have our different strengths and if we pull together, I think we can feed off each other.”
On that point they all agree. “I want us all to be fighting for podiums every race,” Vathje said. “It’s totally possible. We have the potential.”
They also have a duty to one another and the program. The ideal scenario includes three Canadian women at the Olympics in PyeongChang. To date, only two sleds are qualified. Their performance on the World Cup circuit can bump that number.
“I have full confidence in us,” Channell said. “All of our offseason training has been great. We all improved our start times, and that’s such a huge component of the race. Just being able to lean on each other and focus on what’s important race by race, I think we’ll be doing great things this year. What we have is really special.”
What they have is a small team of highly competitive athletes working under intense pressure. Earlier in the month in Calgary, Vathje won the Canadian title, Rahneva finished second and Channell third. Their two-run times were separated by less than half a second.
“We are great on the World Cup circuit because we have such a competitive home base,” Rahneva said. “When we hit the World Cup, we’re ready. We’ve competed. We’ve overcome team trials and we’re ready.”
Team trials and tribulations.