AERIALS: While the anticipation and hype that accompanies every Olympic Games is rapidly gathering momentum, the normally flamboyant and gregarious aerial skier Dave Morris is surprisingly chilled about the prospect of competing in his second Olympic Winter Games.
AERIALS: While the anticipation and hype that accompanies every Olympic Games is rapidly gathering momentum in the countdown to Sochi, one Australian destined to be a centre-stage figure next February is doing everything he can to block out the excitement…for the moment, anyway.
The normally flamboyant and gregarious aerial skier Dave Morris is surprisingly chilled about the prospect of competing in his second Olympic Winter Games.
The current world number two and Australian Institute of Sport scholarship holder believes that a controlled and subdued preparation is vital to his prospects in Sochi, an approach which is almost incongruous with his bubbly personality.
“I’m trying to keep level-headed about it because if you get too involved in it too early, it just psychs you out for the next couple of months,” Morris admitted.
“I take it a day at a time, a training session at a time, a competition at a time and before you know it we’ll be there and hopefully I’m in the super final doing a big jump.
“I am nervous and excited but I tell people I’m not really thinking about it because I need to convince myself that it’s not a big deal, just another day.”
Much of his restrained preparation stems from his experience of representing Australia at the 2010 Vancouver Games.
To some degree, he is planning his Sochi campaign with a clean sheet of paper, carrying forward only a few similarities since his Olympic debut .
Arriving in Canada four years ago as only the second Australian male aerial skier to compete at an Olympics, Morris had just 12-months experience on the tough World Cup circuit.
While finishing in 13th place in Vancouver was a great achievement, he could not have written the script for what was to unfold in the years between Vancouver and Sochi. So much has changed.
After a 12-month World Cup sabbatical, Morris reinvented himself as an elite athlete, capping off last season with historic results.
Morris became the second Australian male aerial skier to finish on the podium, achieved in the Lake Placid (USA) World Cup event in January 2013, and then raised the bar even further by winning the first World Cup by an Australian male athlete in Bukovel (UKR) during February.
The strong finish to the season, when coupled with consistent places throughout the 2012-13 season, saw the 29-year-old from Melbourne’s suburb of Ringwood end the season as the world number 2, which raised more than a murmur among other more highly fancied athletes.
With the confidence of knowing that he can perform at his best when the going gets tough and the assurance that he is about to embark on the coming season in the best physical shape of his career, his goal is a strong performance in Sochi.
“Last time I had almost zero points coming into the Olympic season,” he said. “I had to catch up and I sneaked in to the Olympics in the last qualification event.
“This is a good place to be in. I’m not going to push myself too hard in the events leading up to the Games. I want to take my time and peak when I need to.”
While Morris is resolute on a low key build up to Sochi, the significance of what the Olympics means to him is particularly powerful.
“It’s hard to describe what the Olympics means to me and for a while I wasn’t sure I wanted to go to another Olympics,” Morris said.
“With the first one, I just wanted to make an Olympic Games and represent the country. That was a big deal for me.
“To go to a second Olympics shows a high level of commitment for the sport and consistency.
“Maybe you are lucky to go to one Olympics but two you have done well. I just want to show people that I’ve put in all this work and it’s worth it.”
