Tim Burke working it in the kitchen. Photo courtesy of Tim Burke
With the Winter Olympics less than a month away, I thought it would be fun to track down some Olympic athletes and find out more about them as they gear up for Vancouver.
Often times we only get to see these athletes when the Olympics roll around every four years, and that’s a shame; they work ridiculously hard and many of them have incredible stories about what they went through to achieve their goals.
So, here at the Concession Stand, we want to give them their much-deserved due.
We’re starting out with Tim Burke, a New York native who competes in the biathlon. This event is fascinating to me because it combines two things I’ll always be colossally bad at; skiing (I have some fairly disastrous stories) and shooting (never done it, but my aim suggests I should stay away from guns in any form).
Now, the 27-year-old Burke is not just any biathlete. He’s one of the best in the world currently, and possibly the best America has ever produced. So you know, he's kind of a big deal. He’s currently competing in the biathlon World Cup right now, sitting in fourth place after this weekend’s race in Ruhpolding, Germany.
Even though Burke is super busy taking the biathlon world by storm, he was nice enough to take some time to answer some questions for us via e-mail about how he got into biathlons, his training routine, and achieving something no American has ever done before.
CS: How did you get into competing in biathlons?
TB: Living in Lake Placid it of course made it easier to start in some kind of winter sports. I tried a lot of things, also alpine or ski jumping. But in the end it was the excitement and difficulty of biathlon that I really wanted to feel and train for.
CS: For Americans who maybe aren’t as familiar with the sport, put your achievement of taking the lead in the World Cup standings in perspective.
TB: That never happened before. Over the years the US athletes were always the underdogs in biathlon. There were some Top-15 or Top-10 finishes but to get the yellow bib is a different kind of achievement. You have to stay on top of your game over a long time and gain enough points to stay up front there.
CS: What has changed, if anything, for you over the last couple of years to lead to your World Cup success?
TB: It all started with hiring our coach Per Nilsson in 2006. He is from Sweden and introduced us to a new kind of training. Until I met Per I thought I trained hard. After meeting him I got to know what hard training really looks like!
CS: What do you enjoy most/enjoy least about the Olympic experience?
TB: It’s nice to see athletes from all over the world coming together to compete at one event. We see the biathlon family all year long so it will be nice to catch up with friends from different sports again. It probably will be amazing to compete on the American continent. The only Olympics I’ve been to were in Torino so I think Vancouver will be somehow like a home game for us.
CS: What are your goals for Vancouver?
TB: Of course I want a medal but we’ve seen it at the last Olympics: The Games have different rules. Just because you’ve been on the podium (during) the season does not ensure you a podium at the Olympics.
CS: What does a typical training day for you look like?
TB: Under the World Cup we get up in the morning and drive to the stadium together. What kind of training I do is decided beforehand with the coaches. Either we work some more at the shooting or I’ll do intervals on the tracks. It really depends what you’re working on. After that we’ll have lunch and rest a bit, maybe do some running or skiing later on, before we head to dinner.
CS: Do you pay careful attention to your diet? If so, what foods do you feel are beneficial to you competing at your best?
TB: Of course we cannot eat whatever we want. The nutrition is quite important for a professional athlete. We have a good rich breakfast and often salad and pasta for lunch or dinner. It really depends on which World Cup location we are at. But the hotels do a pretty good job serving the teams what they want these days. So no one can complain about that.
CS: Do you enjoy cooking for yourself? If so, what do you like to cook?
TB: If I have the time I of course like to cook for myself. But again it depends on the time you have. We like to cook ourselves when we’re on training camps but in the winter it’s not that easy to find some time cooking. After the World Cup in Oberhof I made a big American breakfast at my German girlfriend’s house. She really liked it!
CS: What is your routine on days you compete?
TB: Getting up and getting in shape basically. On normal days you have breakfast, head to the stadium and start zeroing. But sometimes the competitions are in the evening so we do some small workouts in the morning.
CS: When you don’t have to worry about what you are eating, what is your guilty pleasure food?
TB: Probably Pizza in Europe or some good barbecue back home.
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If you want to keep up with Burke, he writes a blog at www.timburke.us/. Good luck in Vancouver Tim! We'll be watching!
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