Reflections on the making of a world class athlete

At this moment in time, my courtesy niece, Tara Geraghty-Moats, is the most successful Nordic Combined Women's competitor in the world. The sport, which consists of ski jumping and cross-country racing, has just opened to women this season. Tara has won the first seven high level international competitions, most recently in Rena, Norway.

I've had the privilege of watching this world class athlete come into her own. What did that require of her?

Well, first off, it required good genes. People who are capable of this level of excellence are different from the rest of us.

And it has required a lifetime of willingness to train her body to access her gifts and hone her technique to an exceptional edge. A lot of that was simply grit: day after day driving her body, often in dark and cold. Fortunately, she says this is what she delights in. Top of the line performance probably requires that quirk of character.

But there's so much more. In Tara's case, it has required recovery and rehab from a series of devastating injuries -- two blown-out knees and a smashed arm. This habit of jumping off 100 meter hills isn't for sissies. But she has found flying over snow worth the attendant pain.

And then, there's the fundraising. Nordic sports aren't cheap, especially at the elite level. Competition requires specialized equipment suitable for each setting and every possibility. And winter athletes have to travel widely and frequently to train and race where the hills and snow are located. As a new sport, Women's Nordic Combined has not got much institutional support. Tara, a working class rural young woman, has been piecing together the money to follow her vocation for over a decade. I got my first fundraising letter before she finished her high schooling. But more significantly, she's worked every off-season at a produce farm and pieced together local endorsements to scrape by. Perhaps with her current success, some of the big names in athletics will begin paying her bills. But this is no sure thing in an obscure discipline.

Finally, success for a world class athlete usually requires some level of emotional maturity, the capacity to overcome travel disorientation, anxiety, and pressure, again and again. The necessary focus could be called a positive obsession. This requirement contradicts another reality: world class athletes are usually quite young -- in their teens, twenties, maybe by a stretch their thirties. Yet the champions need to be able to find an inner even keel which is at odds with their own age, hormones, and experience. The ability to find this magic equilibrium may be as rare as those special genes.

It's a my delight to watch Tara finally able to earn recognition for her achievements.