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Uphill battle Britain's bobsled team seeks recognition
Posted: Tuesday January 04, 2000 03:55 PM
SURREY, England --Remember the unlikely though inspiring sight of the Jamaican bobsleigh team bidding for Olympic glory? Well, now another island nation, not particularly known for its winter sports prowess, has similar ideas. Britain's bobsleigh team are gunning for gold at Salt Lake City in 2002. The trouble is, they haven't got anywhere to practice. Devoid of a purpose-built run, the team is going through its paces in something that resembles a converted bathtub on wheels and a grooved track. All in the unlikely setting of an amusement park outside London. It may not be the real thing, but at least it gives the men a chance to perfect their starts and aerodynamic positioning. "The sport is very much like Formula One," says coach Keith Bowers, "but maybe obviously on a slightly smaller scale and obviously there's not quite the vast amount of money involved. But it's things like riding positions that are very important, the aerodynamics. You have to have guys with the head positions in the right position, otherwise you lose a lot of time. "So you don't just jump in like a bag of spuds, if you like. It's very important in terms of riding positions. Push technique is very important. Hundredths of a second at the start mean time at the bottom. So the attention to detail has to be absolutely spot on. It's a lot more than it actually looks to the layman, shall we say." Being a nation more akin to football and rugby as winter pursuits, bobsledding takes a back seat, though the sport was in fact invented by the English a couple of centuries ago. Funding, alongside an inappropriate climate, is a perennial problem. But things are looking up. "The indicators at the moment are good," said team director Tony Wallington. "There are some real talent coming into the sport and this is the right time to get them in. I think you'll see a move towards the sort of performance we need this season to be on track for 2002." Britain's been right on track in the past. The four-man team took home the bronze in the 1998 Nagano Games and that squad's driver Sean Olsson says it shows just what can be done on a shoestring. "Peers of mine in Germany or Switzerland who have achieved a lot less, ranked a lot lower than I am, are a lot more heavily funded, a lot more heavily sponsored and have got a lot greater depth in strength of athletes and crew and equipment. But they'll never achieve as much as we have. Even so, Olsson says the British team has been able to overcome many obstacles. "My world ranking is in the top eight for the last four or five years, three times an Olympian, an Olympic medal. But we're struggling for money. Fortunately, the lottery is keeping us going and I'm able to survive with what we do. But the simple answer is: it's a winter sport and we're a non-winter nation." Non-winter nation or no, Britain's battle for bobsledding brilliance has begun in a bathtub in Surrey. An unusual launching site, but who knows where it'll take them in two years time?
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