It’s not every day you get to see an Olympic gold medal.
But Londoners had the opportunity to do just that Friday during a meet and greet with the city’s own bobsleigh athlete, Alex Kopacz.
Kopacz and pilot Justin Kripps raced to the gold medal finish at Pyeonchang this past winter in the two-man bobsleigh event, tying for first with a pair from Germany.
Speaking with 980 CFPL’s Mike Stubbs Friday, Kopacz described what it was like being in South Korea and preparing for his Olympic debut.
“One of the biggest things we prepared for was managing the hype of being at the Olympics. There’s so many people on hand all the time,” he said.
Despite all the celebrations and performances, Kopacz focused on saving his energy.
“It’s very easy, especially in our sport, since it’s such a short burst for like five seconds, to lose some of your performance, some of your peak performance by walking around a lot.”
That’s why Kopacz spent a lot of time in his room, reading and listening to music, or chatting with people in the Canadian building’s athlete lounge.
When the big day came, there was even more noise and excitement poised at the top of the top of the bobsleigh ice track.
“On the far left we had a ton of fans … then on the right, there’s lots of media, other coaches and competitors. And then, of course, you have all these cameras on you, and the lights are nice and bright.”
But Kopacz says it became easy to block out the distractions, as he readied himself in the last few moments before the race.
“All I ended up doing was stare down the ice — the ice on a really nice race day, especially like the Olympics, is prepped extremely well — so it has this beautiful mirror sheen on it. And I find it almost hypnotic. So staring down the track and kind of going over my visualization of what I want to do and how I’m going to do it.”
Kopacz celebrated his successful debut with fellow Londoners, at the Polish Combatants Association on Ann Street.
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