Your Sport on Your Terms

We are hot off the 2026 Milan Olympic Winter Games, with the Milan Paralympic Winter Games now underway. The romanticized idea of athletes sacrificing everything to train for four years and go after gold is enticing. In this fantasy, the idea is that if we dedicate our whole selves and sacrifice everything to our sport, only then can we see what we're truly capable of. But in my line of work, I'm not so sure that's true.

Did you catch Alysa Liu at the Milano Cortina Winter Olympics? You may have watched her gold-medal-winning performance. Or maybe you didn't watch (I do recommend watching if you didn’t get the chance) but heard that she was the first American woman to win a figure skating gold medal in 24 years. Or maybe all you heard was that she had striped hair and a "smiley" piercing.

Regardless, here's what I want to make sure you hear about her story, just in case you didn't…

At 16, as she was heading into the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic Games, Alysa was experiencing intense burnout and had lost her passion for her sport. Skating no longer felt fun or meaningful. After those Olympic Games, she was physically exhausted and mentally done, and she shocked the figure skating world when she decided to walk away from her sport.

She walked away to experience life outside the rink, then decided to come back on her own terms. She wanted to skate again. Not because anyone forced her to come back. Not because of a contract or a coach or a ranking. Not because she needed redemption. She came back because she wanted to. This time she decided to choose her own music, build her own programs, and compete on her own terms.

Less than two years later, she's standing on top of the Olympic podium. Before her gold medal performance she said, "I don't need a medal. I just need to be here and show people what I can do." When you watch her performance, one of the aspects that stands out the most is her big, beautiful, infectious smile. You can see the difference when an athlete is performing with joy instead of performing with pressure. And I guarantee the athlete feels that difference, as well.

Now bring it back to the bike

Cycling has its own version of the "sacrifice everything" myth. It shows up in how we talk about training volume, in the quiet judgment around missed rides, in the way a bad race can color an entire week. Sport culture has a way of funneling everyone toward a single, narrow definition of success, and if our performance doesn't fit that definition, it's easy to feel like we've failed.

But think about why you actually started riding. Was it a number? A podium? Or was it something harder to measure? The feeling of a long climb finally giving way to a descent, the early morning quiet before the group rolls out, the satisfaction of doing something genuinely hard?

When we pile so much pressure onto outcomes, we rob ourselves of all of that. The process—the actual riding, the joy and the freedom and the suffering and the camaraderie—stops being the point. It becomes just a means to an end. And when that happens, it's only a matter of time before the sport starts to feel like a burden instead of a gift.

Success is yours to define

This is where I want to challenge you a little. What does success actually look like for you? Not for the rider next to you, not according to Strava or TrainingPeaks, but for you?

For some, it might still be a specific outcome, and that is okay. Don't take away that drive if that's what's driving you. Goals and competition are part of what makes this sport meaningful. But even within that, there's a difference between competing because you love to compete and feeling like you have to get a good outcome to justify the time you spend on the bike.

For others, success might look like finishing a ride you didn't think you could. Or consistently showing up through a busy season. Or simply enjoying the process more than you did last year. Those are legitimate, meaningful goals, even if nobody hands you a medal for them.

Alysa Liu didn't skate back onto the ice to prove something. She went back because she wanted to be there. And that inner clarity and sense of ownership over her own relationship with her sport is what you saw on her face when she won.

That's available to you, too. Not just on your best days, but on all of them. Remember that this is your relationship with your sport. You define what it means to you. You decide the terms of engagement.

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At BaseCamp, we believe that every cyclist has the potential to achieve greatness, no matter where they start. Our mission is to create a community-driven training environment where cyclists and triathletes of all levels can train together, support each other, and grow stronger, faster, and more confident in their abilities. Our cycling training programs are expert driven and tailored to your needs. Whether you're a seasoned pro or just getting started, BaseCamp is where you belong.