Lumsden, Wright give boost to Canadian men's bobsleigh team

Canada's bobsleigh team has gone from thin to fat in the space of a year.

There wasn't enough brakemen meeting domestic standards a year ago to start the World Cup season with more than one four-man sled.

Canada opens this season Dec. 2-3 in Whistler, B.C., with three men's crews, as well as a full complement of three men's and three women's teams in two-man races.

The return of two-time Olympians Jesse Lumsden and Neville Wright to the team after two-year breaks has contributed to the sudden depth on the men's side.

Both brakemen said they needed physical and mental breaks after a stressful 2014 Winter Games, but planned all along to return and compete in a third Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, in 2018.

3rd time the charm

"I knew if I was going to take a run for Korea, I needed to get myself sorted out so I can come in 100 per cent," said Wright, a 35-year-old from Edmonton.

"I've been to two Games now, so it's like third time is a charm. I need to finish off with a medal. I'm focused on medalling, finishing my career with a medal so I'm digging in that much deeper to try and achieve that."

Lumsden, a former CFL running back with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats and Calgary Stampeders, concurred the elusive Olympic medal brought him back to the fold.

"The reason I'm here now is because of what happened in 2014," said the 34-year-old from Burlington, Ont. "If we had won a medal, I don't know if I would be here.

"I love competition, I want to be a part of it, I want to be involved and I want to win it. If I have the opportunity, I've got a few bullets left in the chamber to fire. I'm going to empty them pretty soon here."

Lumsden was in the Justin Kripps crew that crashed on the Sochi track in 2014. He and pilot Chris Spring were seventh in two-man bobsleigh. Lumsden and Pierre Lueders placed fifth in both races in 2010.

'A shift in mentality'

Wright was ninth in Sochi in Lyndon Rush's four-man sled and fifth with Lumsden and Lueders four years earlier.

Lumsden has re-joined Kripps and Wright is in Spring's crew this season.

"It makes a huge difference to have people like those two guys back in the program that have the Olympic experience and have the experience of being on podiums in World Cups," said Bobsleigh Canada Skeleton high-performance director Chris Le Bihan. "[Having them] in pre-season sliding, in the ice house, in the gym, it brings a huge amount of leadership back into the program.

"We noticed immediately as soon as they started coming back into the daily training environment a difference, a shift in mentality."

Another development within the men's team is the rise of Hamilton pilot Nick Poloniato this fall. The 29-year-old has pushed Kripps and Spring in domestic races and elbowed his way onto the World Cup team.

"Competition breeds performance big time," Le Bihan said. "The competition between those three pilots is awesome."

Jockeying for position

He said the change in depth from shallow to deep wasn't unexpected. The 2015-16 season was the second year of the four-year quadrennial between Winter Games. Recruitment gets easier closer to the next Olympics.

"The second year after an Olympics is always the hardest. You have a lull," Le Bihan explained. "The Olympic fever from the previous Olympics has burnt off.

"This season Olympic fever will be exploding and in the summer of 2017, we'll have a huge influx of interest into our program."

Bobsleigh is a sport that can be picked up quickly by elite athletes from other explosive sports like track and field and football. Lumsden was one of those athletes prior to 2010.

Those with 2018 aspirations have begun jockeying for position on the bobsleigh team. Former Stampeder and Saskatchewan Roughrider defensive back Keenan MacDougall is one of them, having made Poloniato's crew.

"The season prior to the Olympic season is really the key season. This is where you want to iron out all your kinks," Le Bihan said. "You want stability within your teams as well."