1998 Olympic gold medallist announces plans to compete in 2010
In many ways Ross Rebagliati’s story is already woven into the fabric of Whistler. After winning the first ever Olympic gold medal for snowboarding in the giant slalom in the 1998 Olympic Games at Nagano, Ross has had a park and a ski run named in his honour. His plaque was included with other past Olympians and Paralympians like Steve Podborski, Rob Boyd and John Smart at the World Cup Square in Creekside, and next month he’ll be inducted into the B.C. Hall of Fame.
At the age of 34 he could sit back and enjoy his past accomplishments, but last week Ross announced he would doing the opposite – making a comeback on the World Cup circuit, with plans to represent Canada at home in 2010.
The format for the sport has changed, the technology has changed, and the international competition is tougher than ever, but Rebagliati is confident he can return to the scene even better than he was in 1998.
It was a surprising decision for some, but Ross says he knew it was coming all along.
Pique: That’s a big decision to make. Where did the decision to make a comeback come from?
Ross Rebagliati: I guess I knew a few years ago, leading up to Vancouver and Whistler winning the bid for 2010. I was involved in the plebiscite, I was involved in Vancouver and Whistler’s bid in the early stages, and I knew way back that I was going to have to try and make a comeback if we won the bid.
All along, in the back of my mind I knew what I was thinking, and it just started surfacing more and more and more until finally this year I started riding my race board again after not riding it for about four years.
Pique: How did that feel?
RR: A lot better than I was expecting. A lot more of my ability was there than I was expecting. It was also a breath of fresh air too, because I’ve been away from the scene for a number of years. I wouldn’t have probably taken that much time off my race board if my life wasn’t so hectic after the Olympics in 1998, but I did, and it gave me an opportunity to assess the situation, and it revived the drive for me to continue racing – and for completely different reasons than I had before.
One of those reasons is to be able to compete in the Games that Vancouver and Whistler have been trying to get now since the beginning. Whistler exists because we were trying to get the Olympics, the original runs were cut because we were trying to get the Olympics, the village was built to try to get the Olympics.
And for me, I started snowboarding before we were even allowed to snowboard here, back in ’87, and I had the opportunity to do it from that point until they started to allow boarders, and all the way to 1998 in Nagano.
That’s one cool thing, the history here, but to have the ability to compete at home in the biggest sport event in the world… able physically, mentally and technically to do these Olympics in 2010, I’m too lucky to even believe it. I’ve got all this training under my belt, and lots of titles including the Olympics and snowboard racing, and now it’s all coming home.
In my mind I just don’t have an option. The only thing that my life is right now is to train and to get ready for 2010.
Pique: What kind of a commitment is that on your part? What has to happen to be ready in time for 2010?
RR: It’s going to mean lining up sponsorship and treating it a little more like a business than I did before, without so much reckless abandon in who I was getting my money from and that type of thing.
I really want to make sure that this time around that everything’s in place. I really wouldn’t be able to do it otherwise. Especially in the next couple of years when I won’t be on the national team yet, I’ll still be building my points and I won’t be eligible for the national team yet.
It will be really important to make sure that sponsorship is in place, and that’s kind of where I am right now. I’m solidifying the relationship I have with my sponsors – they all know what my plans are and they’re all supporting it 100 per cent. That’s Roots, of course, and Bell, Arnette Goggles, and they’re ecstatic, they can’t wait to be involved in my quest to be part of the national team in 2010.
I just need a couple more, or maybe one really big sponsor so that I can really make the effort to get over to Europe and race in the Europa Cup and get my level up – not that it’s not going to be there, but you don’t want to just jump back on the World Cup right away.
Everything gets a little foggy (on the tour) and you lose track of what’s happening, so what I’m going to do is introduce myself on World Cup more and more until 2008 when I hope to be already full time on the World Cup. I’ll have 2008 and 2009 and then boom.
I’ll probably start anyway. I’ve been training all this year, and I’m trying to go down to Oregon this summer and train.
Pique: Do you have a coach lined up already?
RR: I’ve got more than one coach. Right now I’ve been talking to one of the coaches that I trained with a long time ago, but I was very successful with back when I was on the world pro snowboard team. He’s agreed to meet me down in Oregon and we’ll do the first training camp together and we’ll see how it develops. I have to think of a lot of things, like buying insurance for the coach.
The national team is awesome. Right now they don’t have a coach but even if they did I would need funding to train with the national team. As much as the riders and coaches might want me to be part of the team and train, there’s conflict because there’s a points system in place, and there’s funding in place, and who am I to not have points and try to get on? I don’t want any conflict, or anything, I’ll just be doing my own thing.
Pique: So basically you’re starting all over?
RR: I’m starting over. I’m getting my old coach that I always used to be with before Nagano, this summer I’m going to try and get about 50 days of on-snow training between now and November, hopefully. But there’s a whole lot more to do than just start training.
Pique: Is your goal to start competing next winter, the 2005-06 season?
RR: Hopefully, yes. I’m definitely hoping for that, to go over to Europe and do a short tour on the Europa Cup, and do some training over there also.
Snowboard racing in Europe is just on a completely different level than it is here. It’s like road riding, like the Tour de France – that just doesn’t exist here in Canada.
Even going into 2006-07, I still don’t see myself as full-time on World Cup season. Between now and then I just want to build points up so I can actually get on the World Cup tour in the first place. Then I’ll start doing a few stops on the tour, like the Whistler race and there’s a race at Mont Ste. Anne. Those will be the first (World Cup) races that I’ll do, but not until 2006-07.
Pique: What about the change in race formats? Are you comfortable with the parallel GS? I know a lot of the older racers weren’t too keen when they changed it.
RR: I’m not keen on (PGS) as much as I was on super G and giant slalom, because (PGS) is not as fast. With GS and super G being as fast as it was, speeds up to 140 kilometres an hour, it kind of weeded out a lot of the scaredy-cats. Even if they’re good technically, if they’re even a little afraid you have the advantage over them. In Parallel GS that’s not part of it any more. A lot more people are in it because there isn’t the fear factor.
But I have won slalom titles on the World Cup tour before. Slalom isn’t my favourite discipline, but I’m good at it, and it translates to the PGS pretty well – the gates are close together, it’s short sprints. It’s also the sport where I’m the most consistent – not that I won every race or anything, but if you added up my combined times over a lot of races I would have one of the faster combined times. For PGS that’s what you want to strive for, to be consistent.
Pique: I know the boards have changed a lot – Jasey-Jay Anderson is trying out a new kind of board this year that the Swiss riders have been using. Do you have a board supplier yet, or any idea what you’ll be riding?
RR: Right now I’m just using prototype boards that I had made after ’98. They’re just replicas of the board that I raced on. I’m going to have to redesign the board and change them because the quickness of the turns means shorter boards. I have a company in Europe I’ve been involved with in the past that makes good race boards, and we don’t have a deal in place yet, but they are going to be sending me some equipment.
Pique: Are you hoping to have all these things, sponsorship deals, that kind of thing wrapped up over the summer?
RR: I’m not even worried about it too much. I really am going to concentrate on nurturing the deals I have in place right now – not necessarily to increase them, but just to make sure they’re there for the long term. Between making sure that my training is in place and that I’m at the level I need to be at physically, that’s priority number one, and number two is to have sponsors in place. It is a big thing, but I can’t really wait for all the sponsors to be in place. It’s the beginning of a long road. You’re not going to see me racing on TV for a long time, I don’t think.
It is what it is, and I’ve been back riding all this year and I feel great on my board and I’ve done enough stuff snowboarding over the last five years that I want to come back more than ever.
Pique: Are you excited, the whole prospect of being back on the road?
RR: Yeah. I have the opportunity to get as many years of riding in between now and 2010 as I did before 1998. It’s the perfect amount of time to get back into it, to get myself ready for that. I’m not panicking – by the time 2008-09 rolls around it will be all planned out. There won’t be any need for hasty decisions.
Pique: Obviously you’re not as young as you were a few years ago. Are you worried about how you might hold up physically? I know I don’t heal as fast as I used to, so does that mean you’ll have to focus more on physical conditioning?
RR: I’m assuming that I’m going to have to stay on it. No matter what age you are you have to stay on top of your conditioning – but you can only train so much however young or old you are. I’ve stayed in shape since 1998. It’s not like I weight 250 pounds and there’s just no hope for me.
With that in mind, I’m not as strong as I’m going to be by the end of the summer, that’s for sure. I haven’t really considered my age in this whole thing, it’s not really what I’m thinking about, although it’s what everybody asks me.
There’s a lot of people that may not be able to retain the physical level they have to, but hopefully I’m one of those guys that can retain that, and also be stronger than I was in 1998. Not only physically, but mentally.
I went into Nagano with a lot of experience, but I’ll be going into 2010 with a lot more experience than I had then. And I hope to combine that with a level of fitness that will probably be higher than it was in Nagano. I’m thinking I’m going to blow the whole age factor right out of the water.
