Q&A:带金牌回家

今年夏天, 太阳城网赌平台 Assistant Fencing Coach Ralf Bissdorf was busy accomplishing something no one else ever has: leading the American women’s foil squad to a team gold medal at the Olympic Games. 8月1日, the Americans defeated top-ranked Italy in a gold medal match before a packed Grand Palais, 巩固美国.S. 作为体育运动的中坚力量，并给予比斯多夫, 前男子花剑银牌得主, 另一个值得庆祝的胜利. 下面, Bissdorf shares more about his Olympic experience, 以及这将如何影响他在山庄的工作. 

过去几周你过得怎么样? 
It’s been a mixture of joy, a deep sense of fulfillment, and a party. 这是最好的描述. When you board the plane for Paris, you hope that everybody comes back with a medal. 所以要坐飞机回来, and for some of them to actually have two medals, because two of them won in the individual competition, 只是一种巨大的快乐. Those are phenomenal athletes and they all deserve an Olympic medal. 

You won a silver medal in men’s individual foil at the Sydney Olympic Games in 2000. How did coaching in the Olympics compare to competing as an athlete?
这是非常不同的. When you compete yourself, that's your number one goal in life, so everything else is put on hold. 作为一名教练，我的正常生活必须继续下去. It’s two and a half years of work and then for the last few months, you really focus on the Olympic Games: getting the team ready, 最后的策略, 确保每个人都身体健康.

29岁时我赢得了奖牌, 那似乎是我一生中最精彩的时刻, and I wasn't sure whether I would ever achieve something of higher significance. But obviously you can't stop living at the age of 29, so you have to set new goals. 现在, 作为一名教练似乎更有成就感, because you help athletes to fulfill their dreams, and you welcome new athletes into this circle of Olympic medalists. It's a more shared joy than when you win it yourself.

Did you like your team’s chances going into the Olympics? 
我们有四位非常独特的击剑选手, 所有伟大的人类, all individually ranked top 12 in the world at the time we went into Paris. 当我得到这份工作的时候, 这支球队世界排名第四, 去参加巴黎奥运会时，我们只有两个人, 但现实是, pretty much everybody can beat everybody there in team competition. You cannot assume that you've got anybody beat, you have to stay humble. 

That said, I thought from the beginning it was possible to win gold. The team was well prepared, in good shape, and we had good strategies in place, so I liked our odds. We’d beaten Italy, who were ranked number one, the last three times. We’d lost to Canada before, but the last few times we beat them too. 和中国, I think we had lost once in the last three years, 但总的来说，我们在对阵他们的比赛中表现不错. 

After the semifinals I got scolded by Lee Kiefer, 奥运会个人冠军, 笑得太多, 但我很自信. You can compare it to a major exam—often you feel like, “好吧, 我还需要一周的时间来准备,” but when I woke up that morning I didn't want it to be another day. 我说:“就是今天. 我们开始吧. 我们准备好了，出发吧.“这种感觉在生活中非常罕见. 

What did you say to your team going into the gold medal match against the Italians? 
About an hour before the match we went over the strategy. 我说:“我们以前打败过他们. 我想我们能做到.“这只是一次正常的谈话, 让人们有点兴奋, 不要过度紧张, 表现出一些自信和信任. I told them, "Look, you are fencing in front of 6,000 spectators. It’s probably the coolest venue in fencing you have ever seen so far, in the Grand Palais. 所以走出去，享受吧. Showtime. 就是这个了. This is where we want to be, and now let's do this."