Noah Lyons: Making fast feel slow

Noah Lyons (above, left) will be among the 14 athletes who will represent the United States at the Paris 2024 Test Event taking place July 7-16, 2013 in Marseille, France. Lyons is competing on the blistering fast iQFoil which is used for the Men’s Windsurfing event.

One of the keys for athletic success is the ability to slow down the action to promote better decision making. But when you are breaking the start line at 13 knots, how do you slow down the action? In this report, Lyons says you slow it down by going faster:

The month of May was spent in the south of Spain in an amazing little town called Tarifa. Tarifa is known for its strong winds, warm weather, and for being a wind sports paradise. It most certainly lived up to the hype.

The goals of this training block were to go as fast as possible on the foil, and to generally improve our feeling on the foil. We accomplished these two goals by doing endless top speed runs on iQFoil and slalom foil (windsurf foil designed only for speed), but also by doing some cross training in tow foiling or wing foiling.

The idea behind hitting top speeds on equipment faster than iQ is that when we make the transition back, the iQ feels slow in comparison. If your adrenaline and heart rate are high, it can lead to rash decision making, so we were trying to make the iQ seem “boring” to enhance our decision making and general feelings.

It absolutely worked. On the slalom foil, Pedro (Pascual) was able to hit 36.0 knots, and I was close behind with 35.96. Going from this, to the IQ made the IQ feel like a dinosaur, which is exactly what we wanted. It gives us the confidence to push even harder on iQ, and also allows us to be more relaxed leading to better decision making.

Paris 2024 Olympic Sailing Program:
Men’s One Person Dinghy – ILCA 7
Women’s One Person Dinghy – ILCA 6
Mixed Two Person Dinghy – 470
Men’s Skiff – 49er
Women’s Skiff – 49erFx
Men’s Kiteboard – Formula Kite Class
Women’s Kiteboard – Formula Kite Class
Men’s Windsurfing – iQFoil
Women’s Windsurfing – iQFoil
Mixed Multihull – Nacra 17

Venue: Marseille, France
Dates: July 26-August 11

Details: https://www.paris2024.org/en/the-olympic-games-paris-2024/