Zara Phillips reveals her ruthless streak

Winners need to believe that they are, beyond all shadow of a doubt, the best. You may think that being royal helps, but it doesn't. Winners also need humility - you can't improve without believing that there is room for improvement. You may think that being royal would get in the way, but it doesn't. Not with Zara Phillips, anyway. Phillips is a professional athlete, a world champion, a red-hot Olympic prospect. She has all the obsession and narrowness that any exceptional athlete in training must possess. That's how she sees herself; that's what she is.

You catch the royal stuff only at the margins: the perfectly understandable wariness of strangers with notebooks, the supremely confident ability to withhold all signs of friendliness, the freezing temperature of those blue eyes.

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