Students from three area schools got a lesson last week in achieving their goals, vaulting obstacles along the way and having the right attitude.
Olympic bobsledder Neville Wright gave a presentation to students at Rochester School May 11, including students from Smith and Grassland schools.
Wright, 34, from Edmonton, began training in Grade 8 in pursuit of his goal of reaching the Olympics as a track athlete. He had been involved in track since he was seven and was on his way until a car accident forced him out of action for awhile, leaving him to think would never achieve his goal.
However, through the belief of a coach at the University of Alberta, Wright was able to get back on the track and was beginning to make a name for himself in the sprinting world.
He won two gold medals at the Canadian Indoor Championships to go along with his greatest achievement: a bronze medal in the 100 metres at the 2007 University Games in Korea.
“I was on par with where I wanted to be at that time and things were going well,” Wright told the students. “But then I began to notice I was losing some speed and strength. It turned out I was injured, but I ignored the warning signs because I so wanted to accomplish what I set out to do.”
Wright eventually went to the doctor and was diagnosed with adrenal fatigue. And since it was an Olympic year, he got very nervous as the Canadian track and field trials were coming up soon.
“I went to the trials and felt good in the race … (I) was there after the finish waiting for my name to come up on the board and I watched, only to see to I had missed out by two one-hundredths of a second,” he stated.
“It’s hard to explain how devastating it felt.”
Nevertheless, his coach got him back into training, which eventually led to the national bobsleigh team taking some interest in Wright, as the six-foot-one, 210-pound athlete had bulked up since the trials to about 225 pounds.
Wright’s first thought, however, was one of disbelief.
“You want me to go out into the ice and freezing cold with this thin suit and race down in a sled at 150 kilometres an hour?” Wright told the kids about the idea when it was brought to him in the fall of 2008.
“Sometimes though, you need to take advantage when an opportunity presents itself, and eventually I said, ‘I need to see what happens with this.’
“So I took on the challenge of a new sport I knew nothing about and pushed really well, doing everything I could to be my best.”
His best earned him a spot at the testing camp in Calgary in September of 2009, where his performance got him a spot on one of the Canadian World Cup teams.
His work, along with the rest of his four-man team, helped him reach his ultimate goal of competing at the Olympic Games in Vancouver in 2010. Wright would also go onto compete for Canada at the Winter Olympics in Sochi last year.
The message Wright hoped to reach students with was, “The work you put into something is what you will get out of it.”
Wright, who has a Bachelor of Physical Education degree, emphasized putting everything you can into whatever it is you do, whether it is school, work or sports.
“My training is just like having a full-time job … (It) involves sprinting for about three hours in the morning, then having a rest before doing more training such as weights in the evening, because I want to be the best pusher and reach that next level,” he said.
“The secret — I know now, but didn’t realize when I was younger — is to have heart and have positive thoughts. You’ve probably heard people say it’s 90-per-cent mental and 10-per-cent physical? Well, that is very true.
“If you think you can’t do it, those words affect your mind, your emotions and your body,” Wright explained. “You sometimes see athletes talking to themselves just before an event. They are encouraging themselves that they can do it.
“This helps me – saying I can, I do, I will. As long as you believe in yourself, you can achieve that dream or goal.”
