Dave Ryding insists his focus is fully back on the job after conquering the world – then being quickly brought back to earth.
The first Briton ever to win an alpine skiing World Cup event slipped to 20th, two places behind his own team-mate Billy Major, on his return to the slopes in Schladming on Tuesday.
“I got slapped back to reality,” Ryding admitted.
“For sure, there was a bit of a physical hangover and for sure mentally, I was still trying to process everything. There was a lot of emotion.
“But it was a stark and timely reminder that you have to do everything right in the lead up to an Olympics.
“I was only 1.4secs off winning. But those small margins that I got wrong made a big difference.”
Ryding can be forgiven a relatively bad day at the office so soon after becoming the oldest ever winner of a slalom and the oldest first time winner of a World Cup.
The 35-year old was sent videos from all over the world of people celebrating his historic achievement. He was front page news even in Fiji.
“It takes me back to when I was watching, say, Alain Baxter or Chemmy Alcott,” he said. “When they had a good result I’d be on the slopes, skiing around like we Britons were kings of the mountains.
“You feel this extra pride and passion and I know Brits will have been hammering around the Alps or wherever this week thinking, ‘yeah, we're the skiing gods of the world, Great Britain’.
“That's cool to know and it’s cool to know that I’ve brought so much emotion and passion to people.”
For a guy who learned to ski on plastic bristles on a dry slope in Lancashire and was a stranger to snow until the age of 12, winning at the ski mecca of Kitzbuhel has understandably taken time to sink in.
Listen to Alcott, now a Ski Sunday presenter, who was on hand to witness Ryding’s glory run, 100 years almost to the day since slalom was invented.
“Nothing in British skiing compares with this and I don’t know how anything ever will,” she said. “We had to scrap everything and re-shoot the show.
“To hear God Save the Queen played in Kitzbuhel, the home of alpine racing, was tingling, unlike anything I’ve ever experienced.”
Ryding has returned home briefly to see his family but is taking no risks and will stay behind his mask and only see them outside. The stakes are too high to risk infection now.
He said: “Everyone who's been on the podium this year will be getting asked the same question: Can you do it again in Beijing?
“There have been six different races this year and six different winners. Out of the 18 podium places there's been 14 different people. I don't think any other sport’s quite like it.
“So yeah I can do it because I’ve done it once.”
FEARS have been voiced that Covid tests could be manipulated at the Beijing Winter Olympics.
Snowboarding Germany President Michael Hölz raised question marks over a system which requires all participants to undergo daily testing.
Hölz, who previously worked for the German National Anti-Doping Agency, told a Snowboarding Germany podcast: "I doubt that we will see fair play in the competitions in China.
"It is relatively easy with [ COVID-19 ] testing, someone can later say, 'We’re sorry, it was a false positive’.
"We know how the topic of doping is dealt with in countries with such constitutions. A comparison between doping and COVID-19 tests is absolutely in order."
Huang Chun, deputy director general of the Beijing 2022 Organising Committee Pandemic Prevention and Control Office, hit back - saying it was “unnecessary” for people to worry.
"We will ensure there is no room for error when it comes to COVID-19 testing data and results," he told the state-controlled China Daily.
"Our testing laboratories are run by professional medical workers who received strict training prior to the Games. The results produced by such laboratories can well be trusted.”
A closed-loop management system has been set up to try to keep out Omicron.
All athletes and officials will be tested at the airport on arrival ahead of the competition which gets underway on Wednesday.
Those who test positive and are asymptomatic will be discharged from isolation only once they have two consecutive negative PCR results, 24 hours apart.
British star Dave Ryding says the fear of contracting Covid at this late stage is on everyone’s mind.
He said: “With the travelling, airports, someone's going to get unlucky going there, through no fault of their own probably.”
