S P O RT S
PERFORMANCE
was starting to lose races. So I decided
to give it a year where training and
competing was the number one
priority to see what I was capable
of. At the end of that year I won the
overall women’s national title which
qualified me for the World Cup team.
From then on I was fully focused and
from 17 years old I was a full time
athlete.
ML: For those who may not have
seen the sport, what are the physical
requirements of a speed skater?
SL: They have worked out that
it takes 9 years to peak at short
track speed skating because it is so
technical. There are so many different
elements to the sport, it is so technical
and you also need to work on so many
different areas of your fitness. You
athletes, and although they were much need incredible reactions to react to
that’s a nice feeling. But when I was
the gun, you need explosive power
better than me and trained much
15 years old I won the Senior Ladies
to get a good start, you also need the
harder, once again I was surrounded
British Championships. The woman
endurance to skate 3000m which is
by amazing people and I just had to
before me had been champion for
27 laps continuously and the ability to
around ten years and I beat her in one copy them.
recover quickly for the 5000m relay
of the sprints at a very young age. That
where you do 8 separate sprints as
ML: Was it a smooth journey to the
qualified me for the national team
part of a team. It is actually impossble
Olympics from there?
selection, so once that happens you’re
to really cover all bases.
SL: Far from it. I moved out of
officially part of Team GB.
I spent months just working on my
home at 16 to live and train with the
I had my heroes within my sport,
first step to make it the fastest in the
team. But I wasn’t funded so I had to
and there was one particular team
world, because if you can get your foot
work, and I also had college. I went
member, Nicky Gooch, who was the
in front of the person next to you then
through an awkward stage where I
first Brit to win an Olympic medal in
hated everyone and was pissed off with you can get your body in front which
speed skating. I completely idolised
is all down to those first reactions.
everything and I nearly blew it. My
this guy and was convinced he had
coach had to take me to one side and
never even noticed me before.
ML: As a professional speed skater,
warned me that I was on the verge of
But after that victory he came up to
me and shook my hand and said “well being dropped from the team because what would a typical day/week look
like?
done” and that felt incredible, it was so he thought I was lazy. I wasn’t lazy,
SL: There are so many competitions
I was just so exhausted from juggling
special to me.
going on and so much travelling it’s
work, college and training, and my
From that moment I knew I was
difficult to have a ‘typical week’. There
performance was being affected - I
in, I was part of this elite group of
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MUSCLE & FITNESS / MARCH 2018