The last time T&T raced in a bobsleigh before this season was at this same track in the 2002 Olympics. It felt good to be sliding in the same place and being able to pick up where they left off. We also spoke with Andrew McNeilly the brakeman of that Olympic team upon arriving in Salt Lake City who was excited to see that not only was T&T back on the ice, but that we were putting down good performances.
Ordinarily a race week is exactly that, a week of practice with two races at the end. But this is no ordinary season. As a result, the race week was condensed down into five training runs over two days, followed by two races in the same day, and rounded off with two 4-man races on the following two days. Combined, that’s four races in three days!
In training Shakeel had been able to get close to Tom’s times at the start, which shows promise for the future. Unfortunately though, he is not heavy enough yet, and we didn’t have enough training runs to work out a strategy with the weight/time trade off. Which meant that Axel and Tom needed to race both races, in the same day. This was a distinct disadvantage over the other teams with a plethora of athletes, but it did not overcome us.
In the first race the pair placed 6th, making up for a slightly less than ideal start time with probably Axel’s best drive to date in the second run. The Brazilian team who are well established at this track and fast starters were able to put down a very solid second run just one sled before Trinidad and Tobago. Both Axel and Tom were aware it would take a lot to catch them, and indeed it came right down to hundredths of a second on the final timing gate to decide the places! Matching their best result of the season, both athletes now needed to rest up, prepare the sled and be ready to go again in just two hours’ time!
Unfortunately, the Brazilian sled was able to do enough in the second race to stay ahead, putting T&T in 7th, but sportsmanship between the two teams saw all four athletes joking about it at the end! After all we are both small bobsleigh nations pushing to compete with the Winter Sport giants!
It is a nuance of the qualification criteria in the International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation that in order to race on the World Cup, pilots must be ranked in both the 4-man and 2-man discipline. So, 4-man in Park City (the easiest track to get down safely in North America) was always our best option to achieve that. Right at the last minute of leaving whistler we were able to source a 4-man sled from one of the two Israel teams who were unable to race.
The priority of the week remained almost exclusively focussed on the 2-man, but we put in one training run on our first day (the minimum required to enter the race), qualified for the race, and then got back in the 2-man. However, that run was not without incident… far from it!
The first training run in the 4-man was also Shomari’s first ever go in a bobsleigh. Loading off the side of a sled is a hard skill and one even extremely experienced athletes often get wrong. So, it was a big ask for him to get it right on his first ever time on ice. As a result, it didn’t go very well. Shomari fell, and was helped in by Tom, who was then sat on Shakeel’s leg the entire way down, and was sat so high he was watching Axel’s lines. However, the good news is that even in these situations the pilot is almost totally unaware of what has happened. The run was smooth and without incident, Axel crossed the finish line and celebrated his first 4-man run as a Trini. It was only when the sled stopped and he heard the grunts and groans from behind that it was apparent something hadn’t gone to plan.
Nonetheless, the team was qualified for the race and we entered race day treating it as just training. Our sole aim was to cross the finish line in last place, bag our necessary points and move on. For the most part we did exactly that. Shomari started sat inside the sled, and the team pushed with three people. However, with the disqualification of one of the USA sleds in the first race, T&T wasn’t last. Then, in the second race we beat one team (Australia) and were just 0.03 seconds off beating team Israel (which would have been ironic, given our sled). The fact that our group of three pushers and one along for the ride were able to beat anyone after just three runs ever, in a rented sled, shows that this team works well together and it bodes well for the future.
The team now head to Lake Placid, New York in order to finish up the North American Cup, and with a good set of results complete our Olympic qualification. Leaving Park City, we are currently comfortably qualified for the Olympics in the international ranking system. So, if we can maintain our position through another triple race then we will have stamped our ticket to Beijing.
As you might remember from before, Lake Placid is one of, if not the hardest track in the world (Axel rates it as the hardest). So, performing well here will be no easy task, especially with another triple header. But the team is up to the task and looking to finish strong!