Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Hey, everybody, it's Peter. Coming up, our sister podcast, How to Do Everything, is back. They're once again tackling your trickiest questions with a lineup of special guests and overqualified experts, including your favorite Winter Olympians. If you have enjoyed listening to How to Do Everything, be sure to follow the show in their own feed and happy listening.
The Winter Olympics start this Friday in Milan, Cortina. We would play the Olympic theme right now, but we're not allowed, so you're hearing this.
U.S. ski legend Ted Ligety is there. He's covering downhill skiing for NBC. He's online with us now. So, Ted, you just got in, right?
Yes, we got it flew into Milan yesterday. I'm up in Bormia right now. I actually got on the race hill today. It snowed a good six, eight inches. So it was more of a powder day than real training for that. It's up there today. It's a lot of snow to clear off.
Did you ski it today?
I did ski down the downhill track, yeah.
So if you have a gold medal, they just let you go down the slope whenever you want? Is that how it works?
Yeah, we're in Italy. They know who I am. I had the right credential.
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Chapter 2: What insights does Ted Ligety share about preparing for the Winter Olympics?
It doesn't look fun the way you're doing it.
So I would say if you're really on top of it, if you're on the top of your game, it's fun. Nowadays when I look at it, I'm five years removed from racing, there are very few days that look fun. Most of it looks pretty scary.
Do you feel that, that lack of training after five years, that gap? Do your legs and knees feel like, oh, dude.
Yeah, my wife jokes that it looks like somebody popped a balloon when she looks at my butt now. I'm definitely not anywhere close to as strong or prepared to do any of that stuff as I once was.
I don't know quite how to ask this, but one thing I'm curious about when I watch competitive skiing is it seems like the way you win is by pushing as close to the limit of failure as possible.
Yeah.
At any given time, how close are you to crashing?
Anybody who wins had to take some risk. People who risk it too much have very short careers or short seasons. So you're always trying to find that right line there. And In a downhill or a Super G course, like five degrees of difference over a roll can be the difference between being on the perfect line and winning and, you know, burritoing yourself up in the fence and ending your season.
So it's a fine line.
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Chapter 3: How does Ted Ligety describe the experience of skiing an Olympic downhill course?
It was like my first time ever rooming by myself. And I slept through the first race there. And, you know, I got woken up by my physio and a security guard, like thinking that something happened to me. And then the next day I won my first World Cup. So maybe I needed that extra bit of rest and was going on the special muscle memory there.
Yeah.
Wait, you missed a race you were supposed to be at?
Yeah, I slept through the race. I woke up at noon. The race had already happened. And then the next day, luckily there's two races in Korea at that time, and I won the next one. That was my first World Cup victory.
I just think about, like, I've... and been like five minutes late to a Zoom call. But to miss a race at the Olympics, like what?
Well, this is a World Cup race, so the race after the Olympics. But World Cup races are the same level of competition as the Olympics.
So when you realize what had happened...
Oh, I was pretty pissed at both myself, but also our hotel was the bottom of the mountain.
So, you know, at seven o'clock in the morning when I didn't show up for breakfast and at eight o'clock in the morning when I wasn't there for warm up and nine o'clock in the morning when I wasn't there for inspection, there's a lot of like touch points that somebody should have realized that I hadn't shown up yet instead of noon after the race is already done.
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Chapter 4: What techniques do skiers use to manage the risks of competitive skiing?
Backslap is you're like laying in the backseat and like your back slaps against the snow. And then you might be like... If that happens, you just pop back up and keep going? In the perfect world, yeah. In the less perfect world, then no, you don't pop right back up.
Well, Ted, thank you so much for talking us through all of this.
Yeah, this is fun.
This is How to Do Everything. I'm Mike.
And I'm Ian. As we speak, at this very moment, the Olympic torch is making its way to Milan for the opening ceremonies on Friday. It's been carried by hundreds of athletes and stars throughout Greece and Italy.
Everyone from the two guys from heated rivalry to an Italian basketball player none of us have ever heard of.
Mike and I once talked to, in our opinion, the greatest torchbearer ever. We're going to play that for you now. Sir Patrick Stewart, what was that experience like?
It was a thrilling and really very emotional experience. I was not prepared for that. The sidewalks were deep right up to the walls of the shops and buildings and stores, people hanging out of windows on the scaffolding of building sites. on rooftops even, the enthusiasm and excitement and the hunger for people to see the torch and to touch it and to get close to it was quite endless.
We watched some video of you carrying the torch, and you looked pretty fit. I wondered, did you work out? Did you prepare for this, knowing you were going to be running with the torch?
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Chapter 5: How do Olympic athletes cope with extreme weather conditions during competitions?
But it has been decommissioned, so you can no longer light it. It won't flame anymore.
Well, now, we're a how-to show. So now, if you could, could you kind of give us, like, maybe a couple tips on how to carry the Olympic torch?
Yes. First of all, with gratitude, I would say, that you're doing it at all. And then I think it needs a good arm elevation with a slight bend in the arm. But for safety reasons, you need to have it well above your head. However, I would recommend... You guys are young, aren't you? You're really youthful. Oh, yeah. You could probably keep the torch in the same hand.
I had to switch hands two or three times because... I'm holding it in my hand now, and I would say it weighs six pounds. Oh, all right.
Okay.
You're not impressed, are you? I can hear you're not impressed.
Well, you're going to feel that after some distance, I would think.
Exactly. And I would say maybe the one other piece of advice I would give, and I think this is very important, try really hard not to fall over.
That seems good.
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Chapter 6: What unique strategies do ski jumpers use to leverage jet lag?
Yeah. All right. We asked him about this thing that we had read about how ski jumpers try to get jet lagged because it actually helps calm their anxiety.
We have a ski jumper on the line with us now to ask him about this. Kevin Bickner is on the team in Milan.
Kevin, is this a real thing?
I wouldn't necessarily say it. that the tactic is using it to an advantage in the sense that you want to be jet lagged for your competition. One thing I did do in 2018 was our events were so late at night. I thought, why adjust all the way over to where we are? You get home from your event, I wouldn't hop into bed and go to sleep and get an early start the next morning. I would then
Hang out and do stuff. Maybe go eat dinner after midnight. Get to bed at like 3 o'clock in the morning. And then I would sleep in until 10 or 11 in the morning.
So you just maintain your USA sleep schedule. You're on that clock. That particular event, yes.
Can we...
I think this is a sport where when I watch it, when I watch the Olympics, I'm wondering what is going through an athlete's head through the whole process. So when you're about to go, tell me what's in your head.
Typically, I would think of the changes I have to make on the hill to make my jump better. to have a further jump, a jump that's more technically correct.
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