“The last
Ice Age moved quicker…” That’s the verdict of Scott Allaway, an overly-honest
bobsleigh brakeman, having witnessed my sluggish 30m sprint. Bobsleigh training starts with an assessment of speed
and though I have some excuses (cruciate ligament surgery for one; never having had an ounce of pace being another) there’s
no ignoring the uselessness of my time. I’m being tested at Bath University,
home of Britain’s only bobsleigh training facility, to determine the load order
for our sled and, by some distance, I am the slowest in our four-man team.
Scott
will help us to stop, but 22-year Royal Marine Commando, three-time Olympian
and full-time psychopath Lee Johnston will be our driver. A mass of
testosterone, his self-preservation mechanism was presumably disabled long ago.
A guy like Lee barely seems to belong to my namby-pamby world – easier to
imagine him on some far flung battlefield, eviscerating a battalion of
Sumerians before breakfast. Having retired from elite competition four years
ago, these days he settles for coaching.
“Lee is
probably still the best driver in Britain,” says Scott. The big man considers
this with a De Niro frown, then says: “It’s true, I probably am… And I
want a medal.”
Day Two
There’s
plenty of unsubtle product-placement in Cool Runnings, and there is here too:
Volvo sponsor British Bobsleigh and I’ll be in their sled with Lee, Scott and
our fourth man Jeremy Taylor, another journalist and bobsleigh novice who's writing for the FT. Today we find out that the most unnatural part of
the sport comes as the bobsleigh passes over the crest of the hill; when running downhill
the natural instinct is to temper the speed, but now the only option is to
speed up, always trying to “add value” as Scott puts it. Then, when the world
falls away and your legs can’t keep up any more, you must instantly jump on –
don’t make it and you’ll be exerting negative energy, mostly likely as your
useless body is dragged along the ice.
In short,
it’s terrifying, and no less so when I take a heavy fall, unable to keep up
with the careering cart. Bloodied and bruised, it’s not long before I fall for the second time. This is as Christ-like as I will ever be: tormented in stages
towards my violent, gory demise. Another hour of practise later, we’ve ditched
the rickety cart and started using something much more like a real bobsleigh.
Now Lee has joined in with the push and things get faster still, even more
manic. Yet, perhaps because this thundering rhinoceros is running right in
front of me, failure no longer seems like an option.
The Training Montage
I fall
asleep and awake thinking of nothing but bobsleigh, fretting about how to
improve. On Twitter, I ask Tesco to loan me a trolley to practise my pushing,
but they’re not up for it, even when I promise not to make any horsepower puns.
Thankfully the good people at Keynsham Town Football Club give me free access
to their all-weather pitch for sprint training. Almost every morning, I’m out
in the cold, stretching my hamstrings, working on my acceleration and trying to
improve what intolerable gym-types call my “explosive power.” At home I lift
weights, squat and lunge as much as I can and, following a bit of research
online, buy some resistance bands to strengthen my hip flexors. I run up and
down the stairs in my house until I feel sick and dizzy then, when I get my
breath back, start a programme of weighted spread-eagle sit ups. I eat
incessantly, doing two workouts a day, knowing that it won’t be enough to
transform me into an Olympian, but hoping it might be enough to make some kind
of difference.
Practise
Runs
The
bobsleigh facility at Igls, Austria, was built for the 1976 Innsbruck WinterOlympics. Since its construction there have been two fatalities, though none in
the last 30 years. Scott insists this is the most gentle bobsleigh run in the
world. Even so, by the time we arrive for the British Championships, following
a fitful, anxiety-ridden night, the confidence and new-found strength I’ve built
over the last fortnight have drained away.
We get
there early so Lee can give us a track walk and we can get a feel for the speed
of the run. His frequent refrain is: "Come on, if fucking Ant and Dec can do it..."
Today there’s also an inter-service championship between various
members from the RAF, Army and Navy. Pre-race these furious warriors bellow and
butt each other, then have at their bobsleighs like howling orcs. After three or four teams disappear down the ice, an emotionless Austrian
voice comes over the tanoy: “Track is closed, ve have a crash.”
| Photo: Wee Mo |
This is
my first time seeing bobsleigh live and it scares the shit out of me. Scott
tells me that on certain tracks that can literally happen, so strong are the
downward G-forces exerted on some of the bends. Here that’s unlikely (we’re
still advised to go to the toilet before racing) but we’ll get up to 75mph and
around the signature Kriesel turn, a 270 degree loop that holds the bobsleigh
high on a 3m wall of ice, we’ll pull four Gs.
| Jeremy and I, shiting it. Photo: Wee Mo |
After
five hours of hanging around, a fear creeping up my spine like mercury up a
thermometer, it’s our turn to race. As it will be my first time on ice
(bobsleighers have specially adapted, ultra-spiky shoes for grip) we’ve agreed
on a jogging start, and that I’ll keep my head up to take in the run.
But
standing on the start line, some important part of my brain disconnects from
the situation – this all seems so unlikely that I become a barely-involved
observer of my own doom. When the bobsleigh moves off it almost gets away from
me completely. I then over compensate, running on the ice for far longer than
we’d agreed, and by the time I’ve swung into position, we’re almost at the
first bend. The moment we hit that, I’m instantly snapped back to reality.
| Photo: Wee Mo |
The run
is like the start of a Marvel movie: a series of loosely connected images
flickering through my mind, barely time to identify each before something else
happens. My ears are quickly overwhelmed by the roar of the run, my feet are
crushed somewhere underneath Lee. My head is slammed left and right against the
bobsleigh as we fly round the bends. It’s a long time before I remember to
breathe. The only point I know where we are is when we hit Kriesel and the
G-force buries my chin in my navel.
Nothing
really compares to bobsleigh, but I can only guess that this is what being born
must have felt like: a relentless, dark assault on the senses, violent and
traumatic.
| Photo: Mat Laroche |
On our
second run, I jump on the bail (a small step on the side of the bobsleigh) with
the wrong foot and sit down too quickly, meaning Jeremy has to jam his ice
spikes into my back to get into position. I spend the rest of the run unknowingly
headbutting Lee in front of me. When we get out at the bottom, he bluntly lets
me know that I’ll need to sit back tomorrow.
I think
perhaps I don’t really like bobsleigh.
The
British Championships
“Did you
enjoy it?” That’s a frequent question asked of novice bobsleighers. For me it’s not
about enjoying – not letting my team down is my first and only goal. But my
bombastic, battle-hardened driver won’t accept Team Volvo not being on the
podium. Lee probably isn’t the kind of guy you’d want to introduce to your nan,
or your boss, but take this bull out of the china shop and I can think of no
one else I’d rather have in charge of my bobsleigh.
| Photo: Wee Mo |
This
being the British Championships, the nation’s best team is also in town.
Currently ranked fifth in the world, next January GB One will carry Britain’s
hopes to Sochi for the 2014 Winter Olympics. Today they have to contend with
us. Watching them warm-up is something like watching the start of the 2000
Guineas; something like an eruption, followed by a rush as though the gates of
hell have opened. On the world stage they are renowned as some of the sport’s
fastest starters, but just in case they were suffering from nerves, I give them
a confidence boost by nervously warming-up nearby in my lycra race suit.
| Photo: Wee Mo |
It’s a
genuine honour to watch these athletes perform. They are the first team down
when the competition starts, pushing a lightning quick 5.15s at the start,
completing the course in 52.21s. We go next, but rather than feeling
intimidated by GB One, following them down is - and I'm choking on my own vomit as I write this - inspirational. Our push time is
6.02s, but Lee’s superb drive puts us in third place, the RAF’s four-man team
separating us from the Olympians.
| Photo: Dilys Richardson |
| Photo: Wee Mo |
It
strikes me as fairly obscene that we are in a medal position with so little
training and only one run to go, but now that we’re there, I’m determined not
to let it slip. I’ve never trained for any sport as hard as I have for this and
it’s unlikely I’ll compete in a British Championship in any discipline ever
again. So when the last run comes and Lee tells us, just as John Candy told his
Jamaicans, that he wants a sub six-second start, that’s what I want to give
him.
Standing
on the starting block, staring down the long, white decline, knowing it leads
to a minute of raw madness, I don’t feel afraid. I don’t feel small. I feel pride, I feel power, and when the roar goes up, I push like Atlas, driving with
every stride, contributing, adding value and jumping in before
I lose control. Then I hold on in the brace position and let the pandemonium
consume me.
| Photo: Dilys Richardson |
| Photo: Dilys Richardson |
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| Photo: Dilys Richardson |
When we reach
the bottom it feels as though the fabric of my soul has been ripped apart and
reassembled, quivering and electrified. We’ve won a bronze medal in the British
Bobsleigh Championships – and we pushed a 5.93s start.
| Photo: Wee Mo |
A version of this piece was published in Shortlist on 28/03/13.
The entire trip was made possible by Volvo.






















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