EMILY AZEVEDO & BOBSLEDDING!

Emily Azevedo
Brakewoman

It Takes Team Work to Compete!

Good Morning! Following up on my recent Blog Post, I felt it would be fun to profile Emily Azevedo, and her role as a Brakewoman on the USA Women's Bobsled Team.

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Since Bobsledding is very inspiring to me (including 2-man and 4-man teams) I found it interesting to note that Emily Azevedo's decision to become a bobsledder came after watching the 2006 Olympic Winter Games in Torino, Italy. Historically-speaking, this is very recent when you stop and think about it. Wasting no time, Azevedo went on to make her debut during the 2006-2007 season. At the World Championships in St. Moritz, Switzerland with driver Erin Pac the duo finished eighth. At the World Cup in Igls, Austria they finished tenth. As I previously noted, in the 2008-09 season, Azevedo teamed with driver Bree Schaaf, winning the National Championships. At Whistler, Azevedo and Schaaf raced to a 5th place finish on the 2010 Olympic track. Azevedo finished off her season racing with Schaaf to 10th place at the 2009 World Championships in Lake Placid.

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Bio

Azevedo graduated from the University of California, Davis in 2005 with a degree in Exercise Biology. While attending UC-Davis, Azevedo was an athlete on the track and field team and currently holds the school record in the 100-meter hurdles. This is amazing! If any of you have run track or cross-country (as I have) then you can understand the tremendous commitment that is required of these athletes to achieve and maintain excellent physical conditioning for bobsledding.

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Points of Interest

Televised Bobsledding events are wonderful because they take us from our living rooms to competition held all over the world so that we can see what is required of the driver and brakeman/woman as push athletes. It may surprise you that bobsleds weigh hundreds of pounds. Both the driver and brakeman/woman have to get the bob moving (or what is tantamount in drag racing called "off the line") from a complete stop in seconds. This requires the duo to run as fast as they can, then jump inside the bob before the first curve. For this reason, bobsledders train year-round in track and field events such as sprinting, jumping, pulling and lifting. Weightlifting is mandatory for brakemen/women since their primary role is to get the bob moving. Time means everything, right down to a fraction of a second. The critical push-off can make or break a team's performance; a 1/10 of a second lead can equate to 3/10 of a second by the time the bobsled crosses the Finish Line. Team members wear spiked start shoes to achieve maximum traction on the ice. The sport's requirements hold that the spikes cannot be no longer than one millimeter, no wider than four millimeters and no farther apart than three millimeters. The skintight, aerodynamic body suits you see the teams wearing are used to help reduce drag on the way down the run. During the push-off stretch, the driver jumps first into the bobsled followed by the brakeman/woman. Each team member crouches in an aerodynamic position. Another requirement involves wearing a protective helmet, usually with a full-face visor or a pair of goggles. This is a dangerous sport at speeds of 90 miles per hour. Lastly, both team mates must withstand forces of up to five times the force of gravity during the banked turns of the race.

In 2007, the debut of Mixed Teams (Men and Women) included Emily Azevedo with Eric Bernotas, Erin Pac, Noelle Pikus-Pace, Mike Kohn, and Curtis Tomasevicz. Very Cool!

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This Saturday, December 5th I hope you will enjoy watching the delayed video of each race at www.fibt.com. You can be sure that I will be accessing the video after work!

Ciao for now!
Michael