So how is everyone getting on with their hopes and dreams for 2022?
Personally, I kicked off January with a pledge to avoid drinking too much alcohol and to stay clear of ‘bad’ foods. So far, it’s going well – let’s just see if I can keep it going for the rest of the year…
Sadly, COVID is still causing disruption to so many people’s lives and professional winter sport is no exception. This is the year that my Cleve Chiropractic colleague Catherine and I were supposed to be supporting a couple of the best skeleton athletes around during their World Cup campaign, followed by the Winter Olympics in Beijing.
Australian Jackie Parsons, the wife of Dom Parsons, and Kimberly Bos, from the Netherlands, have to get on with their busy lives of competition without any personal help from the ‘Bristol connection’.
As I write this blog, Jackie is doing exceptionally well at 17th place out of 32 in a competition that’s really difficult to qualify for because the standard is so high. It is super hard to even get into the top World Championship competition, so 17th is incredible. However, Kimberly Bos is having an amazing time, leading the way with just one race to go before the Olympics.
Kim is a physiotherapist and former gymnast. We met when I was working with GB Olympic bronze medal winner Dom Parsons in St Moritz in 2018, just before the last winter games. Readers may remember that story – Dom gave me his World Cup medal from the race and it still hangs proudly in reception at the clinic!
Kim has always shown real promise but this season she has hit a purple patch of form just in time for Beijing.
Catherine and I have worked with her all around the world. I remember one race in Sigulda, Latvia, where there was an incredibly fast concrete track that started from the top of an intimidating high-rise building. On Kim’s second practice run, three days before the world championship race, she cracked her ankle on the hard ice as she went round a bend at high speed.
She limped up to me after the practice run and showed me the damage. On careful examination it was clear that, miraculously, she hadn’t broken anything but the ankle was very swollen, stiff and she couldn’t walk on it properly. This was my time to get to work! We had three days with nothing to lose as we tried to get Kim to the start line. The daily routine involved carefully manipulating the ankle and going to a local pool for low weight-bearing exercises, before some cold and hot therapy.
Every long day, we used all the techniques I had learned throughout my years in elite sport to get her ready and, as all good stories go, we got her to the starting line – essentially her first practice run since the injury.
In the circumstances, her first run was pretty good as she qualified in 18th place, but her second effort was extraordinary. Only those who had worked with Kim knew that she had the potential for incredible speed. Now she knew that the ankle would hold up, she felt confident to give it everything from that vital push at the top of the track.
Other athletes gasped at Kim’s time as I waited for her at the bottom of the run and asked “where did that come from?” It was so fast that she finished a level 9th place overall.
No matter how it works out in Saint Moritz or the Olympics, Kim has put herself in to the record books with her results this season. I’m so proud of her achievements and a single-minded commitment to her sport at the expense of everything else.
So good luck to the lovely and amazing Jackie and Kim. You both have an English fan base in Bristol and we wish we could be there with you!
If you want to follow Jackie and Kim’s fortunes on the ice, search for them on social media. You can get details of all the races on https://www.ibsf.org/en/.
Photo by Morgan Sarkissian on Unsplash
