CONGRATULATIONS TO TEAM USA WOMEN'S BOBSLED: A FAN'S PERSPECTIVE!

Above: Before Competition
(Photo: Amanda Bird & USBSF)

L-R: USA Driver Erin Pac & Brakewoman Elana Meyers
(Photo: AP)

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Owing to my work hours, this post is appearing much later than I would have liked. But I also suspect that for many, it might also be a departure from the status quo of raw data. Having been in the news business, I can tell you that statistics alone never did much for me. Statistics never revealed the heart, passion, motivation and the emotional current simmering beneath the surface of a positive story of people with the depth of character and conviction that drove our Team USA Women's Olympic Bobsled effort. These past 48 hours have been something else! I hope that in some small way, my blog series has filled in some of those gaps and moved you with awe, because last night our girls--every one of them--was absolutely riveting! So let's get some facts and figures out of the way and then I'll digress--which is something you don't get much of a chance to do behind a microphone or in front of a camera in the news business. But this isn't the news business. This is about Bobsledding!

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Unprecedented! If there was one fact in this journey that thrilled me to no end, it was that the United States of America qualified three bobsleds in the Olympic competition. Last night, driver Erin Pac with brakewoman Elana Meyers earned the Bronze medal on the world stage! They had a combined time of 3:33.40 after posting a fourth heat time of :53.78. Kailee Humphries and Heather Moyse broke the track speed record in their first three runs before earning the Gold medal. They posted a combined time of 3:32:28 with a fourth heat time of :53:23. Helen Upperton and Shelley-Ann Brown earned the Silver medal with a total combined time of 3:33:13.

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Team USA's sled 3 driven by Bree Schaaf and brakewoman Emily Azevedo placed fifth with a combined time of 3:34:05, while Team USA sled 1 driven by Shauna Rohbock and Michelle Rzepka posted a fourth heat time of 3:34:06 to place sixth.

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Pac and Meyers astounded me with their cool composure across Tuesday and Wednesday night in a week when pressures mounted. Eighteen bobsled crashes in both the two and four-man bobsled training and competition events combined since February 17th came to a head this past Monday morning. Two four-man bobsled teams from Latvia and Croatia crashed on the notorious Turn 13, dubbed the "50-50" by American driver Steve Holcomb in 2009 over the sheer chances of driving clean through without incident. Olympic officials moved swiftly to hold a meeting on the turn with team coaches and subsequently modified the turn and other areas of the track by shaving off at least one inch of ice. Troubling news surfaced that Pac had strained a left hamstring during a training run. Before the camera, all I was could see was Pac and Meyers with those infectious grins and faces that lit up in between runs as they discussed what they had discovered on their previous run to the bottom of the course, and what they had to "clean up" in the next run. Whatever pain or discomfort Erin Pac was experiencing, I could only imagine. Nevertheless, both women were "confident", citing their training runs in previous days. Tuesday evening, weather conditions were steadily deteriorating. As their sled was placed onto the track, Pac could be seen repeatedly clearing away fresh snow from her push bar. Here was a woman who started to drive in 2007. An incredible journey to The Olympics!

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Most notable to me with Team USA sled 3 driver Bree Schaaf and Emily Azevedo were the exits from Turn 2. NBC announcers described the experience of "being dropped down four stories" with the speed of "an exploding rocket" on the Whistler track. The duo was delighted beyond belief to be living the Olympic dream, but Azevedo's push starts with Schaaf left no doubt that they were there to win. Their start times were consistent with good drive lines.

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Shauna Rohbock was everything I came to expect as a bobsled fan: Fierce, intensely focused. When she checked with brakewoman Michelle Rzepka at the start and assumed the start position, I could only imagine the German team shuddering. Her load's were impressive. So too was her candor about some difficult turns: "Just been struggling with it all week," she said. "Nobody really has a clue there, and we just keep trying different lines and they're just not working out." In the fourth heat NBC announcers found her "Cleaner on (turn) 2--her cleanest yet! Great eye-hand coordination. This is one of the best bobsled athletes the U.S. has ever had". I agree.

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There was a break and a brief note from the announcer about the G-forces at four-times what an astronaut experiences during a rocket launch. On my living room wall, I have a large custom built shadow box frame containing a photo of Apollo 8 Astronaut Colonel Frank Borman and myself after our 2001 magazine interview in New Mexico. There is his inscription to me signed on the outer jacket of his autobiography, "Countdown", and patches of NASA, Gemini VII and Apollo VIII. I gazed at the framing, then back at the television set. G-forces--stresses and strains to the body during rapid acceleration. As I stated earlier, I'm a fan and not an expert. No, I can't prove what the German team was feeling as they looked on during Rohbock and Rzepka's run. But in a frightening instant, we all watched with horror as Germany's sled number 2 driver Cathleen Martini crashed. Brakewoman Romy Logsch was ejected from the back of the sled and death was suddenly very real to us. I shudder to think that Logsch was ejected at what I believe was over 80 miles per hour onto the ice as Martini continued skidding upside-down in the stricken sled. They survived and reminded us all how dangerous this sport is. Metal on ice, G-forces and split-second reflexes. And at the end, there too is victory.

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Erin Pac: “I’m not really sure how I feel yet. I still feel the same. It’s just going to be something hanging around my neck for the rest of my life. It’s not going to change me or Elana. We just feel a little bit happier.”

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Elana Meyers: “I was just trying to stay calm and relaxed. We’ve been going at this to have fun this whole time, and that’s really what I was trying to do. I had the hugest grin on my face going down because I knew we were about to do something special.”

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Shauna Rohbock: “The U.S. got a medal today and that’s what’s most important. Erin did a great job and put four runs together to be on the podium and I wasn’t able to do that, so it’s awesome that we were able to have those four sleds in the top six."

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Michelle Rzepka: "My dream as a girl was to be an Olympian. You want to win and be on the podium, but I'll take this experience with me forever. The competition was intense. This is a new track, with speeds we've never seen before. All the drivers struggled. But I'm happy that North America was represented well. I'm proud of Erin and Elana."

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Bree Schaaf: “It’s been a pretty emotional experience. The whole two weeks leading up to it you can just feel so much energy. Just trying to control it and harness it as much as we could today.”

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Emily Azevedo: “Obviously we would have liked three in the top three, but top six isn’t too bad. I think we just gave it everything we had.”

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Wrap Up

In retrospect, I really can't tell you what led me to locate the original first post I featured of Bree Schaaf. However, I can tell you what it meant to me. It was about dreams. It was a story that made me smile and recall a book my Pastor wanted to write titled, "Supportiveness". Good, healthy, solid support from family, friends and community. Bree Schaaf lived closest to Vancouver than any of her team mates. Emily Azevedo spoke of her love for home town Chico, California and of her hopes to give back what approximately 22,800 residents gave her along with her family: Supportiveness. Dave Davies, Sports Editor of The Chico Enterprise newspaper and I spoke a few times by phone where I implored him to allow me to access the audio interview the paper did by telephone with Emily and he agreed. I remember feeling happy that I had a voice to go along with photos of a woman who clearly possessed a good sense of humor, amid the thrill of competing as one of the world's best. Michelle "Mickie" Rzepka's broad smile and her faith in driver Shauna Rohbock's experience spoke volumes about the team cohesiveness each of these woman--drivers and brakewomen alike had--and it was tight. Shauna Rohbock's video interview while the team stopped at Park City, Utah en route to Vancouver found her feeling comfortably at home and similarly gave us a closer look at the energy and focus she has. Each woman's background was fascinating. Shauna Rohbock is a former soccer stand-out. Bree Schaaf was a Skeleton athlete. Erin Pac, Michelle Rzepka and Emily Azevedo were tops in track and field, and Elana Meyers was a collegiate softball all star. But there was more to this blog series over these days.

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For me there was early morning breakfast, mugs of hot coffee and lots of homework on these women before driving off to work. There were late nights-into early mornings with much of the same activity after work at home. In between, there was also a sense of attaching faces with voices thanks to audio and video. There was a lot to ponder after piecing together collegiate sports and academic pursuits. In the background, there was the wonder of six women from different states: Washington, Utah, California, Georgia, Michigan and Connecticut. There were photos of push competitions and team building camps. There were images of morning sprints on tracks and weight training in gymnasiums freshly annealed in our imaginations. This sacrifice and dedication twelve months a year for a worldwide event held only every four years easily goes beyond the so-called "ken of human imagining". But these six women came together as our Team USA Women's Bobsled--astounding when you consider that 2002 was the first outing for the Women's Team! For 2010, the competition has concluded.

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I hope you feel as privileged as I do to have at having a certain sense of knowing these remarkable women better. They are now familiar to us, and they have reminded us that dreams can and do come true. They made us care. We believe in them, and even in times as difficult as these, they helped us believe more in ourselves. I hope we see them in 2014. To each woman I say:

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You honored our country and made us very proud. You are The Best!
MM