How Science Helped Me Qualify for the Olympics
What do beach volleyball and science have in common? A lot, it turns out…
Freshly graduated with a degree in Biology, I had traded my indoor volleyball kneepads for a hairnet, long white coat, and a clip board. I longed for earning not medals anymore but the coveted three letters “Ph.D.” after my name and making all kinds of biomedical and pharmacological breakthroughs.
After all, my main goal coming out of communist Bulgaria was to create a better life, so I was ready to dive into the molecular structure of life-saving proteins!
Until that faithful summer... when beach volleyball became an Olympic sport.
As I watched on TV the bronzed-out bodies of the players in the sand take center stage at the Games, my childhood dream of playing in the #Olympics started waking up again. But the whole idea seemed ridiculously far-fetched.
There was a huge gap between where I was - sitting in a lab, analyzing molecules - to where I wanted to be: leaping out of the sand, playing a sport I had barely seen on TV at the Olympic level!
But those BIG IDEAS have a way of not leaving us alone... So I came up with a plan.
I would approach my preparation with scientific precision.
What I lacked in years of training, I would make up with laser-sharp strategy, putting the analytical skills I had been developing in the lab to study the intricacies of beach volleyball. I kept testing and refining my process from point to point, game to game, tournament to tournament until the winning strategies emerged.
The learning curb was steep and painful, as in when we lost so badly in our early international event, leaving us to sleep on the streets because we didn't have money for hotel. My little sister had joined me on the quest - finding a partner to stick with you through the tough times and not quit just because something didn't work proved to also be a key.
From #73 to #23 in two months!
As the Olympic qualification period drew to a close, we found ourselves perilously behind in the ranking. How would we surpass 50 other teams, who were more experienced, better trained with coaches and staff, were fully funded, and we had never beaten before?
Once again, I drew on my scientific background: we had to eliminate the interference and focus solely on the controllable variables!
After taking a long look at our situation, I realized that the biggest interference came not from our opponents, it came from the ranking itself. No matter how much you stare at a piece of paper, a computer screen, or your bank account, you cannot change that situation by looking at it.
The only way you change an outcome is by affecting the controllable variables. In other words, focus on what you CAN control.
Beach volleyball is played on the sand, not on a piece of paper.
By committing to not look at the ranking for the rest of the qualification period, we focused all of our resources on the things we had control over and consequently, we had the presence which is required to achieve great things.
It came down to the last match in the last tournament, right before the qualification deadline. By that time with our minds, hearts, and bodies finely tuned into every detail, seeing the positions of all of the elements as if from a Mendeleyev's dream, my sister and I did what had seemed to be an impossible feat: we qualified to play in the Olympics, surpassing fifty other teams in two months. That was only the beginning.
Today, Petia is applying her high performance skills to her work as a Doctor of Astro-Physics (yes, she got the coveted "Ph.D." after her name!) for the Space Telescope Science Institute at The John Hopkins University.
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“Having CLARITY is like having the MVP on your team.”