Calgary Olympic Lab about networking, paving the way to PyeongChang

Some of Canada's best Olympic athletes have come together at a Calgary summit to share tips, network and mentally prepare for the PyeongChang Winter Olympic Games in South Korea.

Two-time Olympic gold medalist and world champion bobsledder Kaillie Humphries says the Olympic Lab brings together a diverse group of competitors.

"Everybody comes at it from a different angle," Humphries told CBC News.

"Everyone will take something different out of it."

She says it's about veterans sharing with newer athletes.

"I think it's important that that next generation ... learns from the older generation. Being able to talk to those women and just figure out how they approach the Olympics, what they did, all the questions that I had, what to prepare for. This is the first kind of initial meeting for a lot of athletes on what life at an Olympics is like," she said.

"There are so many outside factors. For every athlete this has been a dream your entire life, is to go to the games."

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Brady Leman, a freestyle skier in ski cross, says there is also a fun element at the summits.

"I come here just to get excited and get kind of refocused on the Olympic goal," Leman said.

"I come here for fun too. It's fun to see all my friends in different sports and meet the new faces that are going to be in Korea."

He says understanding the difference between the Olympics and all other competitions, is critical for a new competitor.

"Wrapping your head around the extra things that you have to think about at the Olympics versus a regular competition," Leman said.

"Olympics are so much bigger and everything is so much more difficult at the Olympics, day to day stuff. Just getting to your competition venue is not necessarily a simple task, with security, equipment and buses. Normally we get in the team van and we drive to the hill or we are staying right at the hill. It's wrapping your head around stuff like that. It's finding little takeaways from different people's Olympics experiences and bringing that into yourself."

'Getting to know each other'

The two-day Calgary event is luger Kimberley McRae's first.

She says she hopes to walk away with advice from more experienced athletes.

"We are all kind of getting to know each and being a community again before we hit the actual venue," McRae said.

"Learning about the stresses and what can happen at the games and be prepared for it."

McRae says social media is a relatively new challenge for athletes.

"You are constantly looking at your phones and trying to check the updates and if a tweet goes out wrong or your misspell it, something it can add that extra stress," she said.

"It's just managing those expectations on yourself and developing a plan that you want to do for the games."

'Feel like you have family'

Meanwhile, Humphries says the various panels over the event are aimed at better preparing athletes and teams.

"We get to learn about who we are as a person, as an athlete, our characteristic traits, which teammate to teammate is very import in how you deal with that," Humphries said.

"Being able to connect with your teammates when you show up at the games and there are all these other nations, you feel like you have that family and it's not so scary."

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