okansas.blogspot.com Occassional thoughts about orienteering
Sunday, August 26, 2007
Orienteering or ????
A couple of interesting quotes:
The moment you have done one mistake, you have to accept that mistake. If you are bitter about it...usually you do another and another and another mistake. But that is so easy to say in this interview and so difficult to handle out there.
...you might be in the lead, but while the race is going on, you haven't won. So it's a psychological trick to just not count any results until they're signed off.
The quotes sound like they come from some good orienteers (even the just so lightly awkward English). But, they don't. The first quote is Alexander Wurz, a formula 1 driver. The second is Damon Hill, also a formula 1 driver. The drivers' quotes showed up in today's NY Times.
The article includes a bit of advice on how drivers and coaches try to stay focused and calm:
1. Wurz reminds himself before starting that he has done this hundreds of times. Essentially, that he knows what he is doing and that his preparations have put him in place to do well.
2. Graham Talyor, a "sporting director," said that there are different ways of communicating with drivers to help them focus, but that you want to do so in a "matter-of-fact, professional way....you give them an order...If you see his times dropping away,...you say, 'pick your pace up.'"
