{"id":1474,"date":"2022-01-21T02:52:34","date_gmt":"2022-01-21T02:52:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.oliviagiaccio.com\/blog\/?p=1474"},"modified":"2022-01-21T04:32:18","modified_gmt":"2022-01-21T04:32:18","slug":"achieving-olympic-dreams-making-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.oliviagiaccio.com\/blog\/competitions\/achieving-olympic-dreams-making-history\/","title":{"rendered":"Achieving Olympic Dreams & Making History :)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The past few weeks have been incredible, so<\/em> much fun, stressful, insane, and everything in between!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My 2022 started with a few days of concise, quality training at the Utah Olympic Park, since our Christmas camp that was meant to be in Granby, Colorado, was cancelled due to COVID concerns. What I was initially looking forward to as a nice, relaxing break spent with friends and family quickly turned into one of heightened lockdown as COVID concerns skyrocketed with the new Omicron variant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Cole (one of my teammies) and I at socially distanced training at the start of 2022!<\/em><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Following training at home for a bit, most of my team and I headed to Mont Tremblant for the next few World Cups\/Olympic Qualifiers of the season! (Two girls who had already qualified for the Olympics opted out of attending for COVID precautionary measures.) This also meant that we added some fresh faces to the World Cup crew, which is always a blast!! Particular honorable mentions go to the girls who joined us on Tour \u2014 Elizabeth Lemley and Avital Shimko \u2014 who both absolutely ripped it up and made finals on both days of competition! (Liz even finished her first World Cup ever in with a stunning fourth<\/em> place finish, by merely one hundredth of a point!)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As for me, my sole focus for the week was doing as best as I could in executing my process \u2014 one day and one run at a time. With the Olympic Qualifying period rapidly closing, I used my 2018 Olympic Qualifying experience in Mont Tremblant as extra motivation to compete my best. (Back in 2018, Mont Tremblant was the last event prior to the Games: I choked and fell in my first and only run of the day, effectively destroying my chances at making the Olympics. Here<\/a> is my blog post from that Olympic Qualifying process experience…it’s a pretty neat one to look back on nearly four years later.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the first day of competition this time around, I was super proud to execute three quality runs that brought me to super finals and to a sixth place. While it wasn\u2019t quite enough to make the podium, I was very happy with the way I had consistently<\/em> executed my technical and tactical goals for the day!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Taking a few deep breaths and zoning in before competing in Mont Tremblant.
<\/em><\/strong>Photo: Sebastien Berthiaume (@stillsbyseb) \/ Freestyle Canada<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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A pretty neat perspective of top air in Mont Tremblant!
<\/em><\/strong>Photo: Sebastien Berthiaume (@stillsbyseb) \/ Freestyle Canada<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

For the second day of competition, I yet again proved that I was incredibly focused in on my process and executed a stellar qualifications run to kick things off. Between the rounds, my coach (Bryon) and I discussed how to capitalize on the next couple of competition runs (since my air scores and time scores were a bit lacking from the previous day) and settled on competing my cork 10 \u2014 a trick that had yet to be landed in competition by any woman. Especially since I had competed this trick way back in 2019<\/strong><\/a> (nearly 3 years ago!!) but hadn\u2019t landed it, being the first girl to stomp that trick in moguls competition was definitely<\/em> on my list of goals. Bryon and I made a concrete plan, and I jumped well enough in training to make the call to compete it in both finals and super finals!!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Completely enjoying the moment and investing my energy in executing that trick as best as I could was so much fun<\/em>. It was such a welcome diversion from some of the craziness and pressure of the year to focus on a goal that was completely embedded in making my own little piece of history. Finishing my run and hearing the cheers from all<\/em> of the athletes, coaches, and staff at the bottom of the hill was such an unforgettable moment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n