Congratulations to the USA Men’s Curling historical Gold Medal at the 2018 Winter Olympics
It is exciting to win. It is exciting and especially inspiring when the win comes from behind. And it is phenomenal when this happens when the stakes are at their highest, on a world stage, and have never been done before. With the recent events at the Winter Olympics and Paralympics, people all around the world were excited, inspired and enjoyed the phenomenon that events like this bring.
We send a very special congratulation to the USA Men’s Curling Team for what they achieved in PyeongChang. Their historical win of the Gold Medal at the 2018 Olympics was exceptional and reflects their hard work, commitment and ability to perform when it matters the most.
Bo Hanson says, “Congratulations to the team, they worked so hard and deserve to enjoy every moment of the victory.”
Going into the competition the USA was widely regarded as the underdog: they hadn’t made an Olympic final before, had taken the second to last place finish in Sochi, and last place in Vancouver. This time was going to be different and they were rewarded from the commitment USA Curling made after the Sochi Winter Olympics. They started a high-performance program to improve America’s fortunes on the curling sheet and they did.
Image: Dean Mouhtaropoulos/Getty Images
Of the gold-medal performance, Client Director Liz Masen says, “seeing our clients succeed is such an unbelievable feeling. That’s what it’s all about, that’s why we do what we do.”
In case you missed it, let us catch you up on the action …
Four time Olympian and Team Captain, John Schuster held curling fans in suspense with his heart stopping performance in the gold-medal match. Facing elimination, the USA Men’s Curling team defeated the favored Canadians, followed by the Swiss and then the British team to proceed to the semi-finals. Again, Shuster’s team beat the Canadians to force their way into a gold medal play-off with the Swiss, who beat them resoundingly in the round-robin play, 10 – 4.
Image: New York Post
In the final showdown, the first seven ends were tight with the teams going shot for shot. In the eighth end Shuster delivered the hammer, much derided for his inability to come through in a crisis or deliver the winning shot, Shuster kept his focus, and this was his day. Shuster performed at his best when it mattered the most. His throw delivered the USA an insurmountable lead culminating in a 10 –7 victory and Olympic gold for the USA.
Liz Masen says, “one of my favorite parts of our work is that in between the usual running of the office and working with clients, we get the opportunity to stop what we’re doing and follow one of our clients when they’re at a critical competition time. Whether we’re huddled around the TV in the office or someone’s laptop or constantly updating on a twitter feed, it is an awesome feeling to be in a small way connected to their hard work. We know how much goes into winning and aligning all of the many, many elements at the precise time is exceptional. We love it.”
Where to from here…
At Athlete Assessments, we’re experts in the people side of sport. We know sport and live high-performance every day. Our reputation and proven success at the elite level speaks for itself. The results that our National, Olympic, Professional and Collegiate team clients achieve directly reflects their focus on getting the people side right.
Have you ever wondered what successful Coaches do differently? How they manage to amass title after title and build a team culture athletes want to be part of?
The first thing we noticed with winning Coaches is that they never sit back and become complacent. Instead, the fact that they don’t is what sets them apart from the rest. Winning Coaches are always learning, always striving for the 0.1% and this set them up for success game after game, year after year.
And that’s exactly what University of Florida’s Head Women’s Tennis Coach Roland Thornqvist has done.
Winning a National Championship is not only an incredibly special feat; it is also very hard to do. So when you win a National Championship twice, you know that it is even better and even harder.
You may be the highest scorer or best hitter in your team, but it takes more than that to last the distance and to be chosen out of a field of hopefuls all wanting to make the cut.
The book GRIT made it onto many coaches reading lists over the summer (including ours) and there has been significant media coverage on the topic too. The interest is well founded as more than ever before, Coaches are unanimous in saying that their athletes are lacking resilience, they aren’t as ‘tough’ as their teams in previous times have been. And not just physically tough, mentally tough. But is ‘grit’ really the solution needed? Has the word ‘grit’ become too interchangeable that the real definition has been lost?
Culture is a buzz word in sport. Coaches often attribute their success or failure to this ambiguous word. But at the crux of it why should you care about your sports team’s culture? The short answer…
Where so many other factors in sport, across sports programs and organizations are very similar, effectively managing the ‘people side’ is what differentiates the mediocre and truly great. DISC Profiling will take your team’s performance to the next level, allowing you to get ahead and stay ahead.
Our team packages include our sport-specific DISC Assessments plus importantly, a series of consultations via video conference. Our goal is to use the information of the DISC profiles to the benefit of your program and coaching and make it as useful and practical as possible.
One of the benefits of working with many different sporting teams each year is the insight we gain in what really makes the difference for sustained success.
We share our fundamental performance philosophies and some of the key models we use to achieve success – think of it as the how-to on performance.
Bo Hanson’s career within the sport and the business sector spans over 25 years, delivering leadership, management, and coach development. In addition to his own athletic career comprising of four Olympic appearances and including three Olympic medals, Bo has worked for many years with coaches and athletes from over 40 different sports across the globe. Bo was also the winner of the Australian Institute of Training and Development (AITD) 2023 Award for L&D Professional of the Year, for his dedication to L&D and transformational work across various industries.
After a successful career in sport including four Olympics and three Olympic Medals, Bo co-founded and developed Athlete Assessments in 2007. Bo now focuses on working with clients to achieve their own success on and off ‘the field’, and has attained an unmatched track-record in doing exactly this.
Now, watch us interrupt him for a round of quick fire questions.
Please note, our office will be closed from December 20 to January 6. For any urgent orders or enquiries during this time, please email coach@athleteassessments.com
