Interview with Olympic Gold Medalist

[DenisCollier]

Good day everybody!
I teach a sport science course at the University of Toronto. Gymnastics is not my expertise... though I have a great appreciation for the sport. Last semester I started a YouTube channel where I interview high level athletes and my students have an assignment about the content. This week I am interviewing Canada's only Olympic gold medalist - Kyle Shewfelt.
I'd appreciate if anyone in the chat could give me ideas about the types of questions to ask...
The broad focus of the interview is development of high level gymnasts.
But there could be human-interest types of questions too.
Any thoughts would be appreciated!
Denis

 

[JaJa]

Good day everybody!
I teach a sport science course at the University of Toronto. Gymnastics is not my expertise... though I have a great appreciation for the sport. Last semester I started a YouTube channel where I interview high level athletes and my students have an assignment about the content. This week I am interviewing Canada's only Olympic gold medalist - Kyle Shewfelt.
I'd appreciate if anyone in the chat could give me ideas about the types of questions to ask...
The broad focus of the interview is development of high level gymnasts.
But there could be human-interest types of questions too.
Any thoughts would be appreciated!
Denis

Just a suggestion for future interviews -- Ellie Black. She may not have an Olympic gold medal but she is a 4 X Olympian (an achievment in and of itself to be sure) with a looong medal list fro other international competitions including Worlds.

 

[RAFIKI]

Great interview subject. I read his book recently and found it impressively reflective and honest.

Given the interview topic, I’d be interested to know more of the nitty gritty details of high level training. How much time is spent learning new skills vs training those you already competed? How long would you try learning a new skill before deciding it wasn’t for you? How easy were the skills for you? i.e. what could you do in the middle of the night with only a quick warm up vs what would need working up to. How many full routines would you do leading up to a competition?

Since it’s about development, it would be interesting to know how the answers change at different stages of gymnastics. Hope the interview goes well.