"Sometimes I'm too hard on myself …"

Dorien Llewellyn is 13, a highly talented sporting ace and member of the world’s most successful water ski family. In part two of our interview the young Austrian talks about ambition, his daily training routine – and discloses where he sees himself in ten years.

How would your best friend describe you in two sentences?

Dorien is a funny, ambitious, disciplined guy who never puts himself in the foreground. You can have a lot of fun with Dorien, and he’s a very good friend who is always ready to help others.

They say that you’re sometimes too ambitious …

I think that I’m sometimes too hard on myself. I always want to do my best, also when I train. That’s why I often get annoyed and can’t concentrate any more … I still have to work on that. But I’m a perfectionist like my parents, and when I look at my dad, the way he masters everything perfectly, I want to do it immediately as well as he does. It drives me crazy when I can do a particular move one day and can’t at all the next.

It takes a certain amount of organization to manage ice hockey and school as well as water skiing. How does a very normal day in your life look?

On school days I get up at 6:45 a.m. and do some stretching in front of the TV. School starts at eight. Because I’m so successful at sports I’m allowed to go home at 1 o’ clock instead of at three. As soon as I’m home, I first go running and then straight to the water for my first slalom set. When I’m still wet I sit down to do my homework. About half an hour later I then do trick skiing. After that, it’s homework again and then trick skiing once more. Before I finish jumping training, it’s back to the homework one more time. On Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays there’s ice hockey training as well. And then, when I get home at 9 o’ clock I wash and then go to bed.

And on the weekends?

I often have ice hockey games – and from May onwards, also water ski contests. My mum has her hands full with coordinating all that. She mainly makes sure that it doesn’t become too much for me and always plans weekends when I do absolutely nothing. That’s when I laze around, invite friends over and just watch TV.

We know who your water ski idol is, but who is it in ice hockey? Is there a particular player that you really admire?

There are a few. For example Sidney Crosby, Dion Phaneuf, Jerome Iginla or Alexander Ovechkin. I’ve already met Sidney Crosby from the Pittsburgh Penguins. One time after training they let me into the locker room. It was like a dream. I talked to all the players, got a hockey stick and of course a whole heap of autographs. That’s why I was particularly happy that the Penguins won the Stanley Cup this year.

What do you think that Dorien Llewellyn will be doing exactly ten years from now?

I hope that I will either be successful in the NHL or as a water ski pro. If I haven’t managed that, I’d really like to have finished my studies and to be working for Red Bull with other athletes.