Chemmy Alcott: It’s been like a soap opera but now I can sleep again

 
3 February 2014

I feel as if I’ve been trying to do the impossible but the impossible became a reality with selection for Sochi yesterday.

It feels like a gargantuan weight has been lifted off my shoulders.

I’m in Cortina, Italy, for the World Cup for four races so yesterday I focused on what I was doing rather than watching out for news of the announcement.

But the pings kept coming on my mobile. By the time I looked at it, there were 45 texts and 100 emails, so at that point I was hoping it would be good news. Surely that many people couldn’t be getting in contact to say “commiserations”, could they? So I tentatively went on Twitter and saw a BBC tweet saying I was in.

The support I’ve had since that moment made me ski much more aggressively and freely. Yesterday, I did only my second downhill since my return and I was two seconds faster than the previous run, which indicates the sort of strides I’m making.

It’s been a crazy journey for me and last weekend was the final twist in what’s been a soap opera of my skiing life recently. I qualified last year for the Olympics but had to show the British Olympic Association I was capable of taking up that place. I had just one shot and that was last weekend and, because of the weather, all the racing was cancelled. I didn’t have my chance. You ask the girls on the circuit, I’m never like this but I got really angry and then really upset.

They were consoling me saying, “It’s going to be okay” and I said, “You don’t understand.” I felt so alone I went back to my room and wrote a letter to our ski federation — a personal appeal if you like with a video explaining my situation and how I was getting back to where I need to be.

I’m not sure what that really did but for the ensuing days, all I could do was be a master of distraction, mostly reading about the Second World War. I just didn’t want to think about what was at stake and I’m no good when things are out of my control. In that sense, this was the ultimate, I had no control over my Sochi destiny and that was agony.

I usually read utter rubbish in terms of books but I’d run out of trash so recently started reading Jodi Picoult’s The Storyteller, which is about a Nazi officer’s past and tells the sad tale of a girl losing her mother.

With my own situation and the death of my mother a few years ago, I admit it’s probably not been the ideal reading material leading up to Sochi selection and I’ve been having some strange dreams and not sleeping all that well.

But I slept well last night, simply relieved and happy to have qualified and felt I deserved my place.

In terms of celebration, I had about an hour and a quarter to do that before going out to ski.

Anyone who thinks I might get distracted in marking my selection should have seen me yesterday. My celebration involved a bike session, physio and reading about the Nazis.

The support has been unbelievable from people but especially my fiance, Dougie Crawford, who just missed out himself on selection.

He’s been so unlucky with the weather and the decision is so tough, particularly considering how well he has been skiing recently.

So there’s a certain sensitivity in celebrating even though I know he’ll be 100 per cent behind me and he’s really happy for me because, without him, I never would have made it — and he knows that.

The selection came on the 22nd which is exactly five months to the day that I last broke my leg. The 22nd (of July) was also the date that Dougie proposed to me. It’s clearly a special day, it always will be a special day.

Udo’s Choice is a proud sponsor of Chemmy Alcott, GB’s No1 downhill skier, as she prepares for her fourth Winter Olympics

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