You see this guy here staring back at you? That’s your toughest opponent. Every time you get in the ring that’s who you’re going against. I believe that in boxing and I do believe that in life.
Rocky Balboa’s small lesson from the 2015 film Creed comes to mind in conversation with Roksana Slupek (POL). A multiple World Cup medallist, a Paris Olympian (where she finished 13th) and a rising prospect in the WTCS having logged a personal best finish of 14th in Yokohama last year, Slupek has been on a path to the highest levels of the sporting atmosphere. To reach this reified target, however, she will have to overcome an opponent, one that all athletes must come to terms with at one point or another.
Herself.
This challenge has been complicated to no small degree by the brutal crash she suffered at WTCS Hamburg last summer, an incident that left her with a broken scapula and a ten-month absence from the sport. And now her comeback faces a trial by fire. Next weekend, she will make her return to the WTCS in Alghero.
With a world-class field lying in wait, Slupek heads to Sardinia with battles to fight, both without and within. Permeating her articulate, and often raw, honesty, though, one thing radiates through. That she has the fortitude to succeed.
“The hardest part of that crash was that I didn't really understand how it happened and what I could have done differently,” she revealed. “So I was very anxious about that because as athletes we like to have things under our control.”
“To finish the race this way was kind of brutal for my mind because I just couldn't understand. I was always seeking information from other athletes, if I did something wrong, if someone saw how it happened. It still makes me feel anxious to be honest, not knowing what helps to prevent such things. And I think that left me with a lot of… scars in my athlete mind.”
Lacking clear answers, it has been a long road back. Nevertheless, earlier this month Slupek at last made her first elite start back at the Caorle Europe Cup. In a brave display, one in which she was forced to quell her own mind as much as the opposition, she came away with the bronze medal.
“Two weeks ago, at my first race back in Caorle, I could tell that definitely it's still in my mind because on the bike I was very anxious again. When I had people on both sides of me – and obviously everyone has kind of different technique of riding, and not everyone is so experienced – I was just not racing as I used to race. I was more in the approach of not taking risks and maybe giving up positions to other athletes just because I was very scared.”
“I knew it was going to be a challenge and that wasn't a surprise, but it definitely showed me that it's still very, very deep in my brain what happened in Hamburg.”
Overcoming these mental hurdles may well prove the greatest challenge of this new chapter in Slupek’s career. Every corner, every squeak of a brake, is fraught with danger in a way it was not before.
“On one hand, now I feel like a kid enjoying every session. But on the other hand, whenever something feels slightly off it's like a trauma in my head. Even now leading to Alghero and after the race in Caorle, no one knows about that because everything looks amazing on Instagram, like, ‘Oh, she's back and doing the volume’, but the truth is that I started to feel like little pain before Caorle, and all I could think was ‘what if it's the only race back and then I have a break again’.”
“I had so many emotions and anxiety that, for the first time in my life, the night before the race I cried when I texted my coach because I was so nervous about my health. But what was postponed was the nerves and the stress about the race; that came on the race morning. So I woke up really scared of racing and thinking, ‘what's going to happen?’”
“I think it's important to say these things because we athletes are known as warriors and tough people, but the reality is that it's a very challenging journey with setbacks and situations like that that not a lot of people want to talk about.”
Slupek’s winter brought further challenges as she watched her training partners embark on full preparation for the new season while not knowing herself when she would be able to get back to similar levels of work. In January, she was able to ride for 60 to 90 minutes at a time. She swam and continued with her rehab exercises, too, but as she noted, it “was not the training that is preparing you for a season”.
“What I've noticed, because I’ve had a very tough situation for the second time in my triathlon career, is now I see that when I finally accept that the things are going bad, I just kind of stop counting weeks and thinking about how much I need. I feel like my brain shuts down things like counting how many weeks to the race.”
Any semblance of speed was only properly reintroduced in April when she went to Monte Gordo to train with her squad. Thus, going into Caorle Slupek was fully aware of the work she had missed. Yet knowledge and emotion do not always go hand-in-hand.
“What shows the athlete mindset and our ambitions is that in Caorle, before the race, I knew what I was missing and what I had not done to be prepared. But once I crossed the finish line, I judged myself like nothing had happened. I was already seeing all of things I have to improve and what was bad and not really thinking, ‘hey, you haven't raced in 10 months and didn't do that much training. So, just maybe enjoy it’.
Complications followed. Pain after the race prompted an MRI to investigate the cause. When the scan returned no ill-finding, Slupek was nonetheless handed an easier training week by her coach, a decision that made her uneasy knowing how close Alghero loomed.
Much of this month has therefore been infused with doubt. Doubt that the pain has gone, doubt that she will be ready for Alghero, doubt her body will hold up as she hopes.
Doubt, however, is but one side of the coin when it comes to Slupek’s relationship with triathlon. On the other side lies the strength to overcome such uncertainty, the faith to pursue her dreams, the fundamental love of the sport. And in this regard we can look back to the clearest instance of Slupek triumphing in the battle against doubt.
“The biggest goal in my life was to become an Olympian. It was the dream that I, for most of my life, thought was impossible.” She paused. “I think I often don't believe I can achieve something, but somewhere deep, I think I want to prove myself wrong. So it was like that with the Olympics. I was obviously saying that I wanted to go to the Olympics, that I wanted to try to qualify, out loud, but in my head sometimes I was doubting it. But the thing was that whatever would happen in my thoughts, I was just taking the actions, no matter if I doubted myself. I was just trusting my coach and doing what he is telling me, and I think the emotions and little improvements are what is driving us.”
“It's maybe a typical question, why do you do this if it's so hard, but it's very hard to answer it. We love it so much because it's so hard, it's so difficult, you know? I feel like athletes are like that. If you can't have something, you want to work to get as close as possible. It's a journey that is giving you a lot of pain, but also a lot of satisfaction and a lot of good values, not only in sport, but in life.”
In a little over a week, Slupek will take the next step in that journey. She has performed well at Sardinian WTCS events before, logging finishes of 16th and 19th on previous trips to the island. Simply making it to the start line this time around, though, already counts as a victory over some of the doubts that have festered since Hamburg.
“I don't really feel prepared,” she admitted. “I think no matter where my body is at or what my faults are, I just want to take the actions, go back to my routine, and be in between these amazing athletes, the ones I want to race later in the season and in LA. No matter what, if I'm healthy, I want to go there and race, even if there is a bad result. It's important to get this information and just put myself again in this very, very hard level of racing.”
“Triathlon is such a specific sport that you can train so much, but you can't do in training what you are doing in racing. You can’t do the same effort. So racing is a great training to see all of the race situations.”
“In triathlon, you can learn forever. It's a never-ending story. Every race can be different and even in Caorle, I had this thought that I wasn't in a winning scenario too many times in my life, so it was very new to me. I didn't know really what to do, how to play it tactically, and I learned, again, something new.”
“So in Alghero, like always, I have some small challenges, and for sure the bike is going to be very challenging because of Hamburg, but there's still so many things I need to improve, so it's another race, another opportunity to face it.”
It was as our conversation ended that it became clear why the Rocky Balboa quote at the top of this article sprung to mind. As Slupek put it, athletes are often seen as cut from a similar cloth as the old boxer: indomitable, unyielding, tireless. Yet in her case the comparison holds more water than most.
For such has been the way she has fought through adversity throughout her career, and such is the way she continues to do so, few triathletes demonstrate what it takes to be a warrior like her.