Julius doesn’t rush to fill the silence. He just shifts back in his chair, folds his hands loosely.
“I’m not going to argue with you about the breathing exercises,” he says. “If you’re still on the World Cup at your level,you know how to use them. So let’s leave the tools alone for this session. And let’s go deeper, since that’s why you came here.” He tilts his head. “Tell me about a race where it felt easy.”
“Easy doesn’t exist,” I say automatically, then stop. That’s not quite true. “There were days when it felt like it, though.”
“Pick one,” Julius says.
“Alta Badia. First year,” I answer. “Second run, bib… thirty-something. Snow was trash, knee-deep ruts. Nobody expected anything from me. I just… went.” The memory is right there: the burn in my legs, the way the skis finally did what I wanted. “I was chasing the big guys. If I blew up, it was just one more kid blowing up. They were there to bring the points.”
“And one from this season?” he asks.
I pick at a loose thread on my pants. “Adelboden. Second run. Last out because I’m leading. Cameras in my face, everyone already talking about the streak, about the globe. If I blow up, I lose serious points and tomorrow’s headline is ‘Baier cracks.’”
“How did it feel in the start, those two days?” he says.
“In Alta Badia?” I don’t even have to think. “Light. Like… if I nailed it, great. If I didn’t, no one had to change their plans. Worst case, I was the funny slow-mo in the highlights.”
“And Adelboden?”
Is he really asking that? Every athlete knows that racing with the nation's expectations weighing you down is harder than being a rookie. I don’t need a shrink for that. But I make myself answer anyway.
“Heavy,” I say. “Like there was a rope tied around my chest and everyone was on the other end, pulling. Like I owed them something before I even left the wand.” I hesitate, then add, “And if I crashed, it wouldn’t just be a meme. It would be people in offices asking what’s wrong with me.”
He’s quiet for a beat. “So in Alta Badia, a mistake meant… what?”
“That I was twenty-one and stupid,” I say. “That I’d try again next week.”
“And in Adelboden?” he asks.
I stare at the carpet. The answer sits in my throat like a stone. “That I’m… not who they think I am,” I say finally. “That may be. I just had a good month. That they backed the wrong guy.”
Julius nods slightly. “Same hill, same sport,” he says. “But the story attached to a mistake has changed—from ‘young and learning’ to ‘fraud exposed.’ And you’re still asking your old routines to carry that new story.”
“I’m not,” I say, sharper than I mean to. “Even with Luca in front of me, even back then, people in Austria expected things of me. I’m not new to expectations. I get that it’s harder to play the favorite than be the rookie.”
“Fabio,” he says calmly, “let us talk for a minute about what I want to know, okay? You can keep the comments for later.”
“Okay,” I nod, not even trying to look convinced.
He’s quiet for a moment, then says, “So back then, your job was to surprise people. Now your job is not to surprise them.”
I let out a humorless laugh. “Yeah. Now my job is to be exactly as good as they think I am, every weekend.”
“And inside,” he asks, “which job are you still geared for?”
“How the hell am I to know?”
“Who else is to say, though?” His eyebrows lift; Julius looks me straight in the eyes.
“You mean to say,” I go on slowly, “that I haven’t made the… transition into the favorite’s role? That I still think like the rookie?”
“That’s what a journalist would say,” he shrugs. “I’m only saying that if you cannot describe your mindset around winning and points, then your head cannot be where it should be when it counts.”
“I thought focus is what I need to keep my head where it should be,” I admit.
“Yeah, focus,” he nods. “Breathing exercises, meditation, visualization… only it doesn’t work this season, does it?”
“It doesn’t,” I admit. “Why not?”
