By Jamie Shinkewski
The start of the bobsleigh season will begin quite differently for two Ottawa national team members looking to earn themselves an Olympic berth.
For Cody Sorensen, it will be his first full year pushing the Canada-2 sled piloted by Chris Spring, along with teammates Jesse Lumsden and Ben Coakwell.
The sixth-year national team member has raced with both Spring and Lumsden in the past and they are determined to become Canada’s best sled even if they don’t currently own the name to match.
“I think there is a very good possibility that after the first couple races that we will be that top sled,” Sorensen indicates. “We’re definitely hungry to take that Canada-1 spot.
Sorensen was third-best in fitness testing results out of national team athletes, which normally would put him on the top sled, but he says being on the Canada-2 sled came neither as a surprise nor a disappointment.
“This year it was more of an organic process,” the Glebe Collegiate Institute grad explains. “We wanted guys that had good chemistry and got along well.”
For Jean-Nicolas Carrière, it’s a different story. The 28-year-old was not named to any of the Canadian bobsleighs to start the season. That comes as a disappointment to Carrière because he raced for Canada-3 and Canada-2 throughout last season.
“[There is] a little bit of frustration,” signals the former Toronto Argonauts CFL football player. “You put so much work into trying to make the World Cup. But you have to realize that there are a lot of really good athletes on the team.”
Carrière was not pleased with his test results and wonders if he had the right training schedule, given that he posted better marks in training the week before than he did during testing.
“On that day my body was flat,” Carrière recalls. “I think the tapering program I was on leading up to that day was maybe too long.”
Now, the St. Matthew Catholic High School grad must stay focused and ready in the meantime while waiting for his opportunity to race.
“Instead of thinking about the Olympics right away, now I have to think about being a good teammate and supporting the team,” says the second-year national team member. “Hopefully I can earn a spot again on one of the sleds.”
Added hype in Olympic season
The upcoming bobsleigh World Cup season will be crucial for the Canadian sleds because it decides the seeding heading into the Olympics, and Canada has an opportunity to qualify three sleds for the Games. Canada already has two sleds guaranteed for Sochi 2014, which makes the odds of a Sorensen Olympic debut excellent, although he’s not taking anything for granted.
“Bobsleigh is a fickle sport,” notes the former university sprint hurdler. “There is still a full World Cup season beforehand and we’re flying down the track at 130 km/h so there is stuff that can go wrong, but I’m fairly confident that I will be in Sochi.”
Despite Lyndon Rush finishing first in the overall two-man rankings, it was a struggle for Canada in four-man competition, with Rush ranked 10th in the world overall and Spring 17th.
It was Team Canada’s first season with new sleds from Eurotech, a prominent two-man manufacturer who created their first generation of four-man sleds for the Canadians.
Team Spring, featuring a new lineup that featured both Sorensen and Carrière, finished just 17th at the 2013 world championships, but then managed to place seventh overall a week later at a World Cup on the Sochi Olympic track, including a second run that was third fastest.
That’s got Sorensen excited about the prospects for this season, which kicks off Nov. 26-30 with the first World Cup at Team Canada’s Calgary home base.
“If you’d asked me four years ago at the end of the [Vancouver] Games, I would’ve been more than happy to just have competed,” Sorensen signals. “Now, four years later, I don’t want to waste any more time. I want to be on the podium.”