Piotr Michalski is a polish speed skater. With us, he speaks of his sport, of his career and his Olympics Games in 2018 (PyeongChang).
26 sept. 2018
1.Can you introduce yourself?
I’m Piotr Michalski, I’m 24 years old and I’m from Sanok, Poland.
2.Why did you choose speed skating and how to discover this sport?
I always say that speed skating chose me because my physical education teacher was also speed skating coach, so he invite few guys for training and that’s how my journey started.
3.What is the best feel in this sport, for you?
Making myself faster. Everytime I make my Personal Best it feels great, and if it puts me high in the results list, it makes it even better. Also, I like when someone tells me that my technique is good.
I’m Piotr Michalski, I’m 24 years old and I’m from Sanok, Poland.
2.Why did you choose speed skating and how to discover this sport?
I always say that speed skating chose me because my physical education teacher was also speed skating coach, so he invite few guys for training and that’s how my journey started.
3.What is the best feel in this sport, for you?
Making myself faster. Everytime I make my Personal Best it feels great, and if it puts me high in the results list, it makes it even better. Also, I like when someone tells me that my technique is good.
4.What do you think of your Olympic Games, in PyeongChang? My performance was the darkest scenario I could even imagine. Basically everything was wrong since I start. It was very hard for me not only because it was Olympic Games, but because everything before start was perfect. Even foreign skaters wanted to skate with our group! And then my start was so bad. I gave myself very hard time after that and so my start on 1000m was also below my expectations. Then I just don’t care that much and let the things go. About one week after leaving the Olympic Village we had World Sprints an I was 7th so it clearly showed me that I was in a great shape, and I just needed to clear my mind and just relax and skate. It’s not about being stress out, because it wasn’t any different then other competitions for me. It’s about to not be so pumped and there is no reason to try to skate faster that I really am. And that's what I want to work on it the future. Just stay calm and skate the best I can, not faster than I can. Speed will come with the technique. |
5.You are member of Polish National team, is it a plus for you? Yes, I’m in Polish National Team. Polish Sprint is growing and we are getting faster so I only see myself with that team. 6.What is your apprehension and purposes for the next season? Because it’s first season after Olympics, I want to try what I just said. I want to be more relaxed on the competitions and don’t care about things that I can’t fix now, and hopefully it will make me faster. We’ll see how much. 7.For you, what is the typical profile of an ice speed skater? Everyone. In speed skating you can see all type of people, both physically and mentally that there is no “typical skater” profile. And that's something special about speed skating. You can see big strong guys and skinny but with good technique, and both are super fast. I guess thats why we don’t have points for style. |
8.What is a typical day in Piotr Michalski’s life?
On the camps is pretty simple. We sleep eat and train a lot. Ohh and I dring a lot of coffee too. On the day off I would spend a lot of my time with my girlfriend doing whatever. And we both will drink a lot of coffee as well.
© DESG Photos
9.What is the importance of your sport in Poland?
Speed skating became little bit more popular after Vancouver and Sotchi because of medals, but now I think it gets little bit less popular. I hope it will be better in the future besouse of polish sprinters!
10.You are 24, what do you think of your career?
How can you see the future? I hope to stay in speed skating as long as my health and performance will be good and satisfying. And of course my goal to be Olympic gold medalist one day!
11.What are you doing during summer?
We are coming closer to the winter season time so we have training camps full force. But if you’re asking about my holiday than my holiday is usually in April right after season. This year me and my girlfriend spend that time in Mallorca. I love that Island and I hope to be there more.
By Hugo Bâcle