Sami Kennedy-Sim Interview

Our 'cross' sport series continues as we switch from snowboard to skis and speak with 2014 Australian Olympian Sami Kennedy-Sim! Fresh off her most successful World Cup season yet, Sami takes us through her thoughts ahead of the Olympics next year and why the mood within the Australian team is so good heading towards Korea. She also helps Ben out (slightly) with his ultimate goal of making Nordic Combined a thing in Australia and mentions Nikki Webster...which let's be honest sells any interview as a good one!

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Please note this is an automated transcript that may contain errors.

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BEN WATERWORTH: Welcome once again to Off The Podium, an Olympics podcast, continuing our interview series, speaking to a variety of different athletes in the lead up to Pyeongchang 2018. We of course have heard from a variety of different sports. We've talked about moguls, we've talked about snowboard cross, aerial skiing. Today we're going to be talking about ski cross. Very similar to snowboard cross, except they're on skis rather than a snowboard. I guess that's how you would really describe it. But today's athlete we are focusing on is none other than Sami Kennedy-Sim, an Australian competed at the Sochi Games in 2014, and is coming off the back of her most successful World Cup season to date. And another great chat here with Sami, talking about her recent successes during her World Cup season, as well as training methods and looking ahead to 2018, as she pushes towards her second Olympic Games. And great explanation she gives in terms of how you would describe the sport to your uninspiring Australian who doesn't know too much about it. Very similar to, of course, what Bel Brockhoff used to describe snowboard, crossing our chat with her. And you can tell I get a little bit excited when I find out her husband has a connection to Nordic Combine, the sport that we're trying to sell as the next big thing here in Australia, like we do with modern pentathlon. Until I kind of get shut down quite promptly about my excitement, but you'll hear a little bit about that in this interview. So sit back and enjoy our chat with Australian Olympic ski cross skier, Sami Kennedy-Sim. Pleasure to continue our ongoing series here, speaking to Olympians in the lead up to Pyeongchang in 2018. And our next guest on the show is an athlete in the sport of ski cross, and is coming off a fairly successful season, and looking forward to going towards her second Olympic Games next year. Please welcome to Off The Podium, Sami Kennedy-Sim. Sami, welcome to the program.

SAMI KENNEDY-SIM: Thank you so much for having me, Ben.

BEN WATERWORTH: It's a pleasure, and back in Australia at the moment, and I was just sort of speaking to you off air about a bit of a busy day for you at the moment. We've caught you in between a few different engagements, but it sounds actually like it's almost a good thing at the moment, that it's kind of a spare moment in the lead up to the Olympics, and that this is when Australia is really starting to pay attention to Winter Olympians, which I just want to say, Sami, I feel we need to do more than once every four years. So just putting a call out there to Australia. Come on now.

SAMI KENNEDY-SIM: No, absolutely. April is a really exciting time in winter sports in Australia because all of our athletes and really it's our big family in winter sports. We're a pretty tight-knit community. We're all home and especially coming into an Olympic year, we all get together, together, and shake hands of our fellow teammates who have had good seasons or maybe pat the back on somebody who's had a tough one, and kind of regroup and really get excited about the next nine months ahead of us. And while we all leave these glamorous lives, there's a lot of hard work, and for a lot of us, that's sort of just kicking off now for a little bit of a break post the competition season. So it's really nice to be back here in Melbourne again, preparing for my second Olympics.

BEN WATERWORTH: And, I mean, as I mentioned, kind of a pretty successful season for you, Sami. Some strong results, including your very first podium finish. I mean, you must be back here in Australia right now with a bit of a smile on your face, given that you are leading into your second Olympics.

SAMI KENNEDY-SIM: I have the biggest smile on my face. 80 World Cups, it took me to get a podium. Which is a daunting number, but also a really good sign of the hard work that my team around me have been doing in order to support me and help me get to where I'm going, which is obviously my second Olympics in career in February. It is a really exciting time, and to have that first podium has sort of ratified the work that we've been doing. And yeah, like I said, getting things going into the Olympic season, having a good year, it definitely leaves a big smile on my face.

BEN WATERWORTH: Now, of course, as I said, it kind of seems to be that Australians only seem to pay attention to these winter sports every four years, which again, is a travesty. I'm a huge winter sports fan. Sami and I really wish it was more of a focus, but for somebody like yourself who's in a sport ski cross, how do you explain that to an Australian who thinks of that as like, what the hell is that sport?

SAMI KENNEDY-SIM: The way that I explain ski cross is that it's BMX on snow minus the bike. We've had the beauty of BMX being introduced into the Summer Olympics over the last few years, and actually at the same time as ski cross, and also snowboard cross. So we've got sort of three disciplines across winter and summer Olympics that are similar, and they're great for the Australian audience because you don't have to have a clue about skiing. You never have had to have touched or seen snow before to understand what's happening if you were to turn your TV on and see a ski cross race or a snowboard cross race on. You know that the person that's in front is winning. And that's something that us as Australians and with our sporting heritage, we can relate to because there's nothing worse than feeling like you think someone's going well, and then you read a score and you don't understand why they didn't go as well as we thought. So we're in a really unique situation in ski cross, especially where when you're in the front, you're in the front and there's no questions about that. So yeah, it's a bit of rough and tumble, maybe even rugby ball, rugby without a rugby ball. But yeah, it's something that's really easy to pick up on. All you need to do is watch one race and you're hooked.

BEN WATERWORTH: And it's so entertaining, Sami. This is just what I don't understand kind of how it's not a bigger thing here, because you're right, it's kind of, you see someone in front, that's generally who's winning, but then you kind of have things where people can showboat and it's happened in the Olympics before. I know when people kind of get a bit ahead of themselves and they can fall over right before, I mean, there's just so much drama involved in this sport that it just intrigues me why we only seem to pay attention to it once every four years.

SAMI KENNEDY-SIM: Yeah, that's right. Well, hopefully with the lead up into these next Olympics coming ever so soon, our first World Cups kick off at the beginning of December, and we've got a full World Cup, really a full World Cup season going into the Olympic Games. So there's plenty of opportunity for people to tune in and have a look at what Ski Cross is. And hopefully we can get our sport out there so that there's some more interest and we get some more people involved over the years to come too.

BEN WATERWORTH: Now, you've got a fantastic blog here which I've been checking out today, samikennedysmith.com, for those at home who wish to check it out. And I was just reading here in one of your posts about sort of your season in review, and you're mentioning here about how you implemented some changes into your race plan, your mental game, your strength and conditioning. What were kind of some of the key aspects here with this that really worked for you in this season, given that, as you said, after kind of 80 odd starts, you finally got that podium, because I mean, these clearly seem to work, these changes that you did.

SAMI KENNEDY-SIM: Yeah, absolutely. Like I did say in that blog post, we being my team of two coaches on snow plus strength and conditioning, and also sports life, have kind of been addressing me and my personality traits. And I kind of addressed to everybody that being mediocre was something that I'm not comfortable with. And in order to make a change in the results that I'm getting, we needed to change our approach. You know, if you do the same thing 100 times and you expect a different result, well, that's the definition of insanity. So we kind of shook up everything. And a lot of the training that I'm doing at the moment, whether it's in the gym or if it's with the sports life, and even particularly on snow, it's all about making me uncomfortable and getting me used to being, and feeling okay with being uncomfortable. Obviously in ski cross, you are put in situations sometimes where it's uncomfortable. You're very close to your competition. You might land on them. Someone might land on you. And you kind of have to work on your reflexes and go with your gut feeling and learning how to train that decision making under pressure is something that we've really put a focus on in the last year. And it's something that I'm continuing to do at the moment.

BEN WATERWORTH: And between now and when that World Cup season starts again in December, is there kind of a particular focus you'll be working on between then? I mean, do you even get some time off, I guess, as well, Sami, in between all kind of this and the Olympics next year?

SAMI KENNEDY-SIM: No, no rest for the weekend. That's not true. I had two easier weeks of just going surfing and hanging out with family and things when I first got home from the World Championships back in March. And I started training about three weeks ago with my strength and conditioning team here in Melbourne and also in Sydney. So, I mean, it's a long slog, but in saying that, like I said, the idea is to make me uncomfortable, so I'm changing my daily training environment all the time. We're working on the things that I'm the weakest at, which generally are the things that I don't enjoy doing. So I'm having to get comfortable with the idea of not enjoying all aspects of my training, because obviously when you're in ski cross, it's really fun. There's this element of surprise and this unexpected things can always happen. So it's a unique and ever-changing environment that, yeah, I've got to learn to make my strengths rather than something that might hinder me.

BEN WATERWORTH: And I guess, too, luck is a huge element in your sport, too, isn't it? Because I mean, you could train, be the number one in the world and be the best, but on the day, all it takes is, as you were saying before, somebody could land on you at the wrong point, or you could just miss a jump or something along those lines. So at the end of the day, you could train your ass off, but just need a bit of luck in Korea in 2018.

SAMI KENNEDY-SIM: Yeah, absolutely. And I'm hoping that I kind of got all those bad experiences out of the way in Sochi. I definitely had a bit of a Murphy's Law experience in Russia four years ago, where anything that could go wrong kind of felt like it went wrong that day or even in that period. And I definitely have learnt a lot from that. And I'm definitely looking to increase my chances of having luck and being able to use the luck for my favour. And that's by putting myself in a better position physically, mentally, and obviously technically in my skiing as well. So we ski a lot in Australia, we ski overseas, we ski in the rain, in the hail, in the sunshine, in snow, so that when we get to that competition day, we've dealt with everything that we need to. And that's, you're kind of removing all of those external factors because you've dealt with it before.

BEN WATERWORTH: And you're mentioning how close-knit sort of the Australian winter sports crew really are. I mean, there must be such a strong vibe amongst the team at the moment too, given the success in all the variety of sports we've just come across through the winter season. I mean, how is the vibe in that team heading into Korea next year? And really, I guess, pushing towards what looks like it could be our most successful winter Olympics ever.

SAMI KENNEDY-SIM: It's definitely the best vibe around here at the moment. Everyone, like I said, is coming back together after some time apart. I mean, obviously, being Ski Cross, we travel on a separate tour to the mogulists, to the aerialists and things who are actually in the freestyle discipline. We actually don't see them a lot during the season. So it's really nice to come together and to share, for me, my most successful race year with them, and also enjoy the overall success that Winter Sports is having at the moment. And I think we're in a great position moving forward into Korea to continue the way that we're going. We're obviously doing something right.

BEN WATERWORTH: Well, that's what we're all looking forward towards. And this is kind of a saying, pay attention once every four years, but we've got to... I'm really pushing it out there, Sami, that we need to do this more often. I mean, we've got one of our co-hosts on this show is Canadian, and of course, for them, winter sports is just as strong as summer sports are to us. So to them, it's on every weekend. But this is where we're trying to sell it from an Australian perspective. It's kind of, this should be on. This should be on our TV all the time, like it is in Canada.

SAMI KENNEDY-SIM: Yeah, well, and like I said, most of these events that we are dominating in, especially in the moguls and things, they're so great to watch. It's great to watch aerials. It's great to watch Snowboard Cross. You chuck ski cross, you chuck alpine, and all the other disciplines in there. There's something for every type of sports fan. And even those people that don't particularly hang on to sports find that they are tuning in to things more because they might have liked gymnastics as a kid. And there's obviously an aerial component into a lot of the freestyle disciplines. And skateboarding is a big thing in our mainstream community and the young communities of Australia. So snowboarding is obviously the go-to for them. And there is actually something for everybody in winter sports. So it is really exciting at the moment.

BEN WATERWORTH: The one that I really want to try and sell, we sold heavily during Rio last year, in modern Pentathlon. And look how that turned out. Chloe Esposito took the gold. It was fantastic. I've taken up on my next challenge here, Sami, is to sell Nordic Combined, which is a connection to yourself, of course, because your husband, Ben, he's now taking up Nordic Combined, I believe.

SAMI KENNEDY-SIM: No, that's not true.

BEN WATERWORTH: It's not true? Oh no, I got excited there.

SAMI KENNEDY-SIM: No, sorry, sorry to crush your dreams there. Yeah, my husband, Ben, retired from cross-country skiing after the Vancouver Olympics in 2010. He had an opportunity to give Nordic Combined a go, which he did, but he came into the sport a little late, unfortunately. But for him, it was a great tool to sort of experiment within another sport that's linked to cross-country skiing, which obviously was his sport, which is the marathon running of winter. To me, that is the hardest sport. The training that those guys have to do is brutal, and the racing's even tougher. So they're definitely a different breed, those guys. But yeah, Nordic combined, I think we could be greater in Australia. We've got cross-country ski trails all over New South Wales and Victorian snow fields. We've just got to get some kids over to Norway to learn how to jump.

BEN WATERWORTH: I feel we still need to get Ben on the show at some point, just to get a bit of a vibe of cross-country, as well as talking up this Nordic. How about we hook that up after this interview, and we see how we can go with that. We'll chat, we will. Now, Sami, we like to sort of close off our interviews. We are sort of mentioning our co-host Colin from Canada, what he likes to do with his Canadian athletes. They had a questionnaire on the Canadian Olympic website in the lead up to Rio last year. They kind of asked athletes a variety of different questions to just get a bit of a different take on their thoughts heading into the Rio Games. So we're gonna change these up a little bit for our Australian athletes, and get a bit of a vibe here. So it's called My Name Is, and it says I am Canadian. So obviously we're gonna change that here to My Name Is, Sami Kennedy-Sim, and I am Australian. We'll just start off with that to make sure that that, but it starts off with, what is your favourite Olympic moment?

SAMI KENNEDY-SIM: Oh, that's a toughie. I mean, obviously for me as an athlete, or are you asking in my general realm?

BEN WATERWORTH: You can give me one from yourself, and perhaps maybe one of your favourite ones you remember growing up watching as a kid or as an adult.

SAMI KENNEDY-SIM: I mean, my all time favourite Olympic moment, which sadly has nothing to do with sport, was being a mere young and watching Nikki Webster float through the opening ceremony of the 2000 Olympics. I can't tell you how jealous I was of that girl.

BEN WATERWORTH: Oh, look, anything involving Nikki Webster needs to be mentioned more. I'm with you there.

SAMI KENNEDY-SIM: You know, that really, that was the first Olympics that I got to go to and be a spectator and really get a grasp for what I wanted to be, which was an Olympian. I wanted to represent my country at the highest level of my sport. And I'm a sucker for track and field. I was lucky enough at my work last year to be able to have the broadcast of the real Olympics on TV while I was at work. So I got to watch a lot of sport last year, which is fantastic. And my favourite thing about the Olympics is how inspiring the stories of all these people are. You know, people have gone through so much adversity and have come from near and far to be able to achieve whatever it is that they're trying to achieve. And I love the way that the Olympics brings everybody together like that. It's such a great celebration of great people and obviously really entertaining sport. Really gives you that true appreciation of how much of an impact on the community an athlete can have. And that's something that I sort of really hold close to my heart, and that's something that I try to do. I feel it's my responsibility as an Olympic athlete in Australia is to give back. And I love spending time in my communities through Surf Life Saving. I do a little bit from when I was a nipper back in the day all the way up to the winter sports community in Australia, and rubbing noses with the kids, it's awesome.

BEN WATERWORTH: Fantastic. It's what we like to hear. And let's be honest too, ever since Nikki Webster in Sydney 2000, every opening ceremony has tried to copy that. I swear there's always a little kid going through a journey, but it's not the same as Nikki. Nikki holds the bar high, so, you know.

SAMI KENNEDY-SIM: Yeah, Nikki Webster had it going on in 2000. That's for sure.

BEN WATERWORTH: Absolutely. We'll see what happens in Korea next year, you know, who their version of Nikki Webster will be. If you could choose any Olympic host city, where would it be?

SAMI KENNEDY-SIM: For winter, it would be Innsbruck, Austria. I've always wanted to go, I would love to have competed in Central Europe, really, at an Olympic Games. I mean, that's where we spend most of our competition season. So it's sort of like a home away from home for me. And they eat, live, breathe winter sports over there. So I think that would be just the most amazing experience. And for summer, I'm pretty keen to head on over to Tokyo and see if I can lend a hand, because I think that'll be an Olympics for the record books too.

BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, definitely. It's going to look very, very good over there. What do you like to do most in your spare time, Sami?

SAMI KENNEDY-SIM: I've recently picked up stand-up paddleboarding, and I'm currently taking it from flat water to the surf, which is pretty entertaining for everyone else, maybe even a little terrifying. But it's definitely a really fun way for me to get some much-needed vitamin D when I'm missing out on the summer all the time. And other than that, it's really spending time with my family. That's the biggest thing. I am away sort of six to eight months of the year, so that family connection when I'm at home is really important to me.

BEN WATERWORTH: You're about to be in Olympic sport too, stand-up paddleboard, so you've always got another future career there after the ski crossings.

SAMI KENNEDY-SIM: Yeah, I don't know if I'm at that level.

BEN WATERWORTH: What is the weirdest instruction a coach has ever given you?

SAMI KENNEDY-SIM: I don't think it's suitable for to say out loud.

BEN WATERWORTH: We're an open show here, Sami. You can share.

SAMI KENNEDY-SIM: I think the weirdest was probably when I was beginning my training as an elite athlete, taking the next level from being a development athlete and taking that step up and learning the proper lifting techniques in the gym when I was doing Olympic weightlifting and learning how to use my pelvis like Elvis.

BEN WATERWORTH: Pelvis like Elvis. That works. I like it. I like it. All right. Speaking of this, and this might be your answer for this one, what is your favourite workout? Is it using your pelvis like Elvis?

SAMI KENNEDY-SIM: I love Olympic lifting. I know that sounds really tacky, but it's something that I see results in really quickly with my physique. So obviously that makes me feel good when I'm working on something, and I see the results really quickly. So for me, I find that really rewarding. But I do love being sprung on training and not knowing. That's kind of what I'm going through at the moment. I kind of rock up to training, knowing that there's going to be some kind of endurance session, and I don't know whether that will be on a bike, on a hill running, or if that will be using weights in the gym. So I'm actually loving the surprise workouts at the moment.

BEN WATERWORTH: To me, lifting about 10 kilos is Olympic lifting, but I mean, I guess that's because I'm not an Olympian, so that's why.

SAMI KENNEDY-SIM: I'm definitely not an Olympic level weightlifter, but I'm giving it a nudge.

BEN WATERWORTH: If you could have lunch with any one person, who would it be?

SAMI KENNEDY-SIM: If I could have lunch with any one person, I think I would have lunch with Usain Bolt. I recently watched his documentary, filmed over the Beijing period, and a lot of what he was going through resonated with me, and I think he'd be fascinating to talk to, and I think it'd be quite a laugh too.

BEN WATERWORTH: I think, yeah, you would be definitely having some fun times there as well. So yeah, that's a good one. Now, there's a few here, but one I'm going to close out with here, because there's a little bit too many to get through. The last one, I'm always intrigued from an Australian perspective to find out who people grow up supporting in terms of different sports, and particularly, you know, we're all from different states, so of course, you know, we follow different sports. But as a kid, Sami, who was your favourite sports team?

SAMI KENNEDY-SIM: I was a North Melbourne Kangaroos AFL supporter for the years that I grew up in Melbourne. But in saying that, I'm a solid Manly Seagulls Rugby League fan now, and my favourite probably sports person to follow when I was a kid was Sam Riley.

BEN WATERWORTH: Ah, yes.

SAMI KENNEDY-SIM: Purely, because when I was that age, she was doing quite well, and she had the same name as me. That was probably the motivator. Yeah, I really like growing up on the Northern Beaches, you know, in the later years of my childhood, being exposed to such a vast array of different athletes. So it was really cool, you know, having like Elka Graham and things come to school as well. That sort of stuff really resonates still with me, and I think it's really important, and I look forward to doing more of that myself.

BEN WATERWORTH: And you've got Zali Stegel from the Manly area as well, of course, one of our greatest skiers. So, you know, there you go. Wow, we've learned a lot here, Sami. This has been a lot of fun, and we appreciate your time. And best of luck for Pyeongchang as well next year. We're going to keep an eye on it. And for sure, we'll get Ben on. We'll chat all cross-country and Nordic combined and everything else in between. But good luck with everything.

SAMI KENNEDY-SIM: Yeah, he's the one to ask about that, not me. Thank you so much for having me.

BEN WATERWORTH: A lot of fun there to chat with Sami, and as we said in that chat, we wish her all the best of luck moving forward, and check her out on samikennedysim.com. She's got a great blog there, and lots of great little social media posts there about her skiing and everything else in between there as well. And just fantastic time to chat. And once again, we thank everybody at the Australian Olympic Winter Institute for hooking these interviews up. Very last minute too, I will say, Belinda Noonan, you star, thank you so much. And we'll obviously have a few more, hopefully coming in the coming days as well. If you want to hear all of these, you can subscribe to us via iTunes and Stitcher. Just search Off The Podium. And remember to rate us and leave us feedback. And maybe send us a message. You can do that on Facebook. And maybe tell us, you know, is there any particular athlete you would like us to track down and find out? Because we'd definitely love to track down some athletes if you are specifically after anybody that you maybe want to hear from. But between myself and Colin, Jared perhaps too, if he wants to chat to anyone, we're going to keep bringing you these chats. We've still got a good 10 or so months between now and the Winter Olympics, but that's a lot of time to cover and a lot of time to chat to a lot of people. So in the meantime, we hope you enjoy it. Thank you for your time on the show today, and we will speak to you very soon again here on Off The Podium.