Danielson: Winners Win

Sunday night, on TourChats, Tom Danielson of Team Garmin-Cervélo helped shed light on something many of us have heard but probably not fully understood: winners win and they win because they know they can.

Tom Danielson at home after the 2011 TDF (by Mary Topping)

“Mentally, once you perform well, that helps you perform better in the future,” he said. He illustrated this concept using Johan Van Summeren’s experience. Van Summeren used to ride one-day classics as a support rider. Everything changed when he won Paris-Roubaix in 2011. “Now he’s going to train all winter with that mental outlook,” Tom said. The mental outlook of a winner.

Tom parlays overcoming personal troublesome times into motivation. He knows he can “go any direction and get through anything.” He focuses on the overcoming part. Overcoming something is another form of winning.

Threading his way up Alpe d’Huez in the 2011 Tour de France through 40 guys to reach and climb with Evans and the Schleck brothers was another “mental check” for Tom. Once there, he told himself, “This is your company, where you belong.” It’s where he plans to be in 2012: where the winners ride.