Vanessa Mae wants to switch over to Olympic Skiing
Being an Olympic skier is hard work; it requires years of training and a certain level of athletic skill. So when the vivid violinist Vanessa Mae says that she wants to become an Olympic skier should we take her seriously? She is a phenomenally talented musician and performer but for someone to train to become a professional athlete, they have to start at a younger age. That is unfortunately the way it is, and Vanessa should know better than anyone else because she started playing violin at the age of five. She might just make it to the Olympics, but we should really not hold our breath.
Vanessa Mae is one of the world’s most famous violinists. She started playing violin at 5 when she moved to UK from Thailand with her mother. At the age of 8 she travelled to Beijing to train at a famous conservatory under the tutelage of professor Lin-Yao-Ji. She became highly skilled on the violin and at the age of 10 and grabbed the title of youngest soloist to play at the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London. Over the years, Mae started to release albums and performed sold-out concerts all over the world. But it seems now that at the age of 31, she has decided that she wants to try something else in her life. She wants to become an Olympic skier and represent Thailand in the sport.
The problem that she faces is that Olympic skiing is a very difficult sport to master. Skiing itself is not easy to learn in the first place and skiing at a professional level is hard beyond imagination. There are five different disciplines in the sport of Alpine skiing, and each one is no less than an uphill task. The first discipline is the standard downhill, were skiers race down a slope and the skier with the fastest time is the winner. Next is the Super-G, which stands for Super Giant Slalom. This type of Alpine skiing combines the speed of downhill with the turns and skills needed for the giant slalom. The Giant Slalom is next, which is similar to the slalom but features wider and fewer turns. A skier makes two separate runs down two different courses. Then there is the Slalom, which sees skiers going down a slope through a series of gates. The winner is the one who can complete the course in the least time possible. Finally there is the Super Combined, which consists of a downhill run and then a slalom run and the times of both are added together. Now we do not know which event Vanessa is going to choose but whichever she does, it will not be easy for her to master.
The real challenge for the violinist is the fact that to become a professional athlete in any sport, one has to start at a very young age. An athlete also has to have the right type of genetic makeup and probably a coach, who has guided the athlete through years of training. To start at the age of 31 is not really making it easier for Mae, who now faces an uphill struggle to represent Thailand in the Olympics. She was unable to represent her native Britain because the level of competition was too high and she did not stand a chance of making it through. It seems there is another reason why Vanessa wants to get into a new field. Her early childhood and musical career were looked after under the iron-fist of her domineering mother, who Vanessa managed to break free from at the age of 21. Ten years have passed since that time, and it seems Mae is sick and tired of performing music and wants to do something else. This is a very interesting way to rebel because in a way it is making a slight mockery of the hours of training and hard work professional Alpine skiers put into their sport. For someone to just stand up and say they will now try Olympic skiing is very similar to someone standing up at the age of 30 and saying that they will now become a professional violinist. It disrespects the skill-level and talent required to perform the task.
We will have to wait and see if Vanessa’s dream of becoming an Olympic skier comes true. If the bold violinist shows the same level of determination that she shows to her music, Mae might be able to pull it off. She will only realise how difficult the sport is, once she starts to train as a professional athlete. If Vanessa Mae can do it, well and good, but if not maybe she should stick to her day job.
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