After overcoming mental hurdle, Summer Britcher faces physical challenge at third Olympics
Don't tell Summer Britcher it's not a big deal.
She's done this long enough to know breaking your finger — in the one sport where you "slam your finger into a solid object" — is less than ideal. Especially four weeks before the Olympics.
She's also come far enough in the past four years to accept she needs to focus on the things she can control.
"I think it would really annoy me if I had anyone in my support system that was like, 'You'll be just as good,'" she said, putting the last part in a fake cheerful voice. "It's definitely a big setback. I need a lot of things to go right.
"But it's not impossible ... I can still be competitive."
A Glen Rock native, Britcher is preparing to compete in her third Olympics. The 27 year old is now one of the veterans for the USA Luge team that begins racing for medals in Beijing this Saturday — though women begin competition Monday.
She's looking at things differently than she did as a wide-eyed 19 year old in 2014 or as a pressure-filled 23 year old in 2018. Part of that is because of what she's learned in the past.
Part of it is out of necessity.
On Jan. 9, Britcher fully broke the middle finger on her left hand when she crashed her sled in a World Cup race in Latvia. She had qualified for the Olympics a week before.
The "silly" injury has forced her to change her preparation the past few weeks and rely on her knuckles rather than her fingers to gain speed at the start of her races. She finished 24th at the final World Cup race on Jan. 23 as she focused on protecting her finger and didn't have her typical start. She finished 11th overall in the nine-race-long World Cup standings — the highest finish for any American.
In an interview on Jan. 20, she said the USA team doctor was "hopeful" she'd be able to user her normal techniques at the Olympics. But she won't be fully recovered.
"I let myself pity myself for a couple days, and then I had to come up with a plan," Britcher said over the phone from Switzerland. "In a way, this makes my goals easier to achieve. Obviously the dream is to come away with a medal, but I don't set my goals based on results. My goal has been to have really good competition runs so I can walk away proud of how I perform.
"That's something attainable and in my control."
Walking away proud of herself is not a cliche for Britcher. It's a mindset that hasn't been easy to reach.
Getting there has required reassessing what it means to push herself as a person and athlete.
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The countdown clock
In recent months, Britcher has been able to count down the days to Beijing with excitement and anticipation.
But for Britcher, the countdown started four years ago and not in a positive way. The numbers were north of 1,400, and she couldn't get them out of her head.
At times the number made her want to vomit.
It wasn't the first time she faced a mental battle with those numbers.
"Ugh, the countdown clock," said Britcher, sounding almost relieved to discuss an old nemesis. "Everyone has a sense of when the Olympics are coming ... but going into Korea I knew the days like three-and-a-half years out.
"It was insane."
She finished 15th at the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, Russia. It was a "fairytale magical experience" for the teenager. Her face cramped at the opening ceremonies because she couldn't stop smiling.
2018 in Pyeongchang, South Korea was different.
She was supposed to be a medal contender. It was the first time she faced that type of pressure, and she admitted to putting too much stress on herself.
She described a "weird tunnel vision" when she finally competed.
"I had been looking forward so obsessively and so much," she said. "That the moment was finally there, and it didn't feel real."
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Britcher was in eighth in the standings after her third run, but fell to 19th overall after rough fourth and final run in which she bumped into a wall. More difficult to swallow was the U.S. relay team finishing fourth — one spot away from a medal — by about a tenth of a second. At the time, she blamed herself for the team missing bronze.
She said she "dwelled on it for a very long time" and will "always have a little bit of heartbreak" over Korea.
But a different challenge awaited her at home.
USA Luge's training facility in Lake Placid, New York already had a clock on the wall counting down the days to Beijing. Four years after obsessing over that number leading up to Korea, Britcher now wanted to run away from it.
And that feeling made her feel like a failure.
"We all kind of define motivation within sports as this insane drive that athletes feel at the cost of everything else," she said. "That they will do whatever it takes to succeed. You feel a lot of guilt when you shift your priorities and say, 'I'm not going to make it the end-all, be-all and the most important thing in the universe.' There are a lot of other things important to me.
"That's why I struggle with it so much."
Britcher was still successful in 2019. She finished fifth at the World Championships in Germany. But she admitted she struggled to get out of bed some days and would fake smiles after races.
Over the past two years, Britcher said she's been able to find a "healthy" way of motivating herself. It's still not an easy process, but she said she looks at competing as a choice and not something she has to do.
Being around her younger teammates has also given her a major morale boost.
This past Oct. 27 was the 100-day mark leading up to Beijing. Britcher was able to enjoy the excitement of the moment and detailed her feelings in an Instagram post.
"I don't have a simple answer," she said about finding a healthy way to motivate herself. "I train the same amount. But when I don't do well, I don't feel like a failure. I used to get seventh at a World Cup and feel like the biggest failure ever. That was unhealthy.
"My life doesn't always have more balance because I'm training the same amount, but now I'm a lot kinder to myself."
Remaining proud of herself
Britcher admitted her expectations for Beijing might've changed after breaking her finger.
She's USA Luge's all-team leader in World Cup victories. She's had the dream of becoming the third American (and second woman) to win an Olympic medal in luge.
That will likely be much harder now. But she's reminded herself that the main point is to do the best she can. She said she appreciates the well-wishes she's gotten from family and friends back in York County.
"There is the stress of wanting to perform well for the people who support you and for the area you're from," Britcher said. "It's kind of heartbreaking to break your finger and think, 'Oh no, what are they going to think?' But everyone's been incredibly supportive."
In recent days, she's come across as relaxed on social media — posting pictures of her and her teammates posing with the Olympic Rings. She caught national attention for a TikTok video praising the remote-controlled beds given to athletes.
After going through "two extremes" at her last two Olympics, Britcher is hoping the lessons of those experiences help her have a performance she can "be proud of" in Beijing.
"It's difficult because you get to the Olympics, and it's insane," she said. "It's hard to stay in this good mental zone. In a way, (the injury) might free me up where I can achieve my goal a lot easier because there is certainly a little less expectation.
"But I'm confident I'll put together some runs I can be proud of."
How to watch USA Luge at the 2022 Beijing Olympics
The Olympics will be televised on NBC and streamed on Peacock. Xfinity customers get access to Peacock at no extra charge.
Here's when the women's luge team will be competing and when it will be aired:
Monday, Feb. 7: singles runs 1 and 2 from 6:50 a.m. to 9:40 a.m., EST
Tuesday, Feb. 8: singles runs 3 and 4 from 6:50 a.m. to 9:30 a.m., EST
Thursday, Feb 10: Team relay from 8:30 a.m. to 9:50 a.m., EST
Matt Allibone is a sports reporter for GameTimePA. He can be reached at 717-881-8221, mallibone@ydr.com or on Twitter at @bad2theallibone.
This article originally appeared on York Daily Record: Winter Olympics: USA Luge's Summer Britcher battling broken finger
