Freestyle skier Chris Lillis links visualization to victory

133 stairs to the top. We do roughly 1500 jumps *** summer. Saying freestyle skier Chris Lillis is *** details guy, so that works out to roughly 200,000 stairs *** summer in the ski boots is like saying he kind of wants to win another Olympic gold medal. Aerial skiers are extremely meticulous just by nature. We track everything. Everything goes into his jump log. It’s like an athlete’s journal. Of each trick we’ve done, how many jumps we’ve done total, how many stairs I climbed, what I had for breakfast, Chris won gold at the 2022 Beijing Games in mixed Team Aerials and finished sixth in the men’s event. It’s different when you’ve won before because, you know, really the only question anybody has for you is, are you going to go win again? And my answer is always the same, it’s it’s yes. Winning at the 2026 Olympics means training the brain as much as the body, so visualization can be just kind of like mental imagination, whether it’s in the first person or in the third person, really just imagining yourself doing that jump, but then I’ll stand up, I’ll click into my skis, and then stand there *** few deep breaths, close the eyes, put the arms up, and these are the motions coming into the jump. One twist Two twists, 2 twists, break out and land in the pool. And so kind of going through that maybe 2 or 3 times in my head while trying to stay very calm. The whole jump takes just seconds and is recorded in his jump log, as is every stair he’s climbed at the Utah Olympic Park training pool. I’ve been water ramping for 18. Years now. So however many stairs, I think it’s over 2 million now that I’ve walked up here at the pool. How many medals will he win at the 2026 Winter Games? Well, that’s TBD, but you already know where they’ll be recorded. On the road to Milan Cortina. I’m Deirdre Fitzpatrick.