Coaching

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COACHES CORNER

Greatness is Available to Anyone !

Achieving Your Personal Best
Bonnie Blair
April 2011 Olympic Training Center,
Colorado Springs CO

ice. Bonnie Blair grew up in Champaign IL where her competitive family traits enhanced her desire to win as she followed her older siblings onto the ice at a very early
age. With skates on her feet before she could walk, it only seemed natural to skate and soon she and her brothers and sisters were told "they were going too fast" by
the management of the local rink.

She started her carreer on the ice in short track racing but became an Olympic medalist in 500m, 100m and 1500m. Bonnie gave an inspiring description of her
training, attitude, coaching, and sacrifice that it took to achieve Olympic Gold...over and over again.

Bonnie Blair spoke about .....
(1) Commitment to her sport. She put training and competing ahead of family, social life and anything else that would take her eye off of the objective of winning.
(2) Training. She trained summer and winter...on land or on ice. She utilized cross training--the use of other similar sports such as roller blades, biking, running,
climbing.
(3) Teamwork. Although Bonnie raced individual races, the other members of the US Olympic Speedskating Team helped each other train.
(4) Attitude. Hating to get beat---at anything--runs in the family. Even in training, Bonnie would not let the men outdo her in effort. Skaters from other countries
on the ice in competition excited her. She knew they were good...she had to be better.
(5) Focus. Often Bonnie's family were "out of the loop" as to what she was doing because she focused on what was important to the extent that keeping everyone in
a large family appraised of her progress was not practical. Her one desire was to do whatever it would take to "beat the clock at the end of the track."
(6) Sacrifice. She knew that she had to do everything that was good for her, even if it appeared to be selfish to others. Her routine, diet, friends, training partners,
coaches were all picked carefully so that she could be the best athlete she could be.
(7) Coaching. Having a coach whom you trust is vital. Bonnie Blair changed coaches late in her career and found that communication was the key to a good coach.
Their training began to emphasize quality over quantity.

Following her final Olympic race in Lillyhammer, Bonnie stayed in the sport to participate in World Cup racing the following year. One personal goal had not been
achieved: Breaking the 39 second mark at 500m. She had set the World Record in 500m at Heerenveen in 1987 at 39.43 and at Calgary in 94 at 39.10. But in
Calgary on 26 March 1994, Bonnie saw her dream come true with a new World Record of 38.99. She broke her own record in February of 1995 by setting the World
Record at 38.69.