Adam Pengilly shares his experiences competing in the Skeleton and preparing for the Winter Olympics

Christians in Sport supporter, Adam Pengilly was involved in the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City as a coach of the Bobsleigh team. He is hoping to be involved in the 2006 Turin Olympics – as a competitor!  His event is the skeleton – sometimes known as the tea-tray!  Over the next few weeks we will be following his progress. Here are extracts from his diary of the season

12 December
Anyway, after a few days in the UK training, chilling, doing some media stuff, and trying to relax a little, I headed off to Torino for 4 days training - the last opportunity we will get before the Olympics.

It didn’t start too well - half my luggage didn’t turn up! The half with my helmet, sled weight and much of my sliding gear... Anyway, thanks to a loan from the Irish President (of skeleton!), a long journey to Switzerland, a helpful organiser, and a late night fixing up my sled, I managed to slide and get the full amount of runs, having started a day later than everyone else.

And thanks to the incredible efficiency of the Italians (hmmmm) my luggage arrived after way the last training run and about 8 hours before we left the country - 5 days after we arrived! The Olympic village and general building sites are apparently somewhat behind where the Greeks were in the run-up to Athens, and they don’t have the luxury of a Mediterranean summer to build in - the snow is falling!

So off I went to the next world cup venue in Igls, Innsbuck, where I know the track quite well and was confident of a strong top 10 (at least) finish.  Training was decent if not amazing and the first run followed suit - solid if not spectacular. I was lying 6th equal and only 0.16s behind the guy in sliver medal position... Exciting stuff. I pushed off in the second,which was again fairly decent, and then drove the top 3 corners well. After this I proceeded to make a royal b*#$s Up and had my worst race run of my career being 18th out of 20 for that second run which put me in 13th overall...I was gutted.

Looking back, it’s encouraging that I can have such a disaster and still be in the top 15 in the world, but after the disappointment of Lake Placid, the frustration and stress of not having my correct equipment for Olympic  training in Torino, and a few other things, I was not on top of the world.


16 December
Raced in Sigulda yesterday after just 3 days training and yet again the weather was somewhat ropey... The first run was a bit of rain for everyone, but generally equal conditions for all - I had a blinder and was 6th quickest taking over a second off my pb and beating the British record here! Tried 4 new steers in the race as me and the coach only worked out how to do a couple of corners after my final practice session (they took the covers away so you could see all of the corners) - bit of a gamble, but it certainly paid off!

After the first run the top 20 went in reverse order, and the local guy was off first. He put down a good run but then the heavens really opened and it started to snow. A lot. Athletes were going down and were way behind the guy who was 20th after run 1, and were 2-3 seconds slower than their first run. Anyway after 11 or twelve guys went down and the Latvian was still leading the jury decided it was getting ridiculous and cancelled the second run - sopositions after run 1 remained!!!

Swings and roundabouts I guess - I felt as if I didn’t quite earn the 6th spot, but after Lake Placid I’ll take it... GB are now guaranteed 2 men’s spots at the Olympics, so I’m nearly home and dry from a qualification point of view!

 

"After a successful 9th in the first World Cup last week, the tour moved east to New York State and the site of the 1932 and 1980 Olympic Winter Games. This was where the “Miracle on Ice” took place, as every visitor is continually reminded, when a bunch of American Uni/college students took on the might of the Soviet regime to win the ice hockey final 4-3 during the Cold War.

"Anyway, history lesson over, I was there to continue my quest for Olympic qualification in the second of five World Cup races… Training went really well, better than ever in fact, and on one day I even found myself second quickest in our training group (they’re split into two to reduce time),
along with beating the British number one throughout the week.

"I woke on race day at 6.30 (that nearly killed me) and opened the curtain to find a haze of white with the snow falling heavily. Hmm, “same for everyone” I thought, and knew that if the snow was consistent for everyone, my fast push would help be a benefit.

"Having moved into the top 10 in the rankings, I had my best ever start draw of 2, and hence had to time my warm up and track walk differently as I would be sliding nearly half an hour earlier than before. As tracks sometimes slow during a race this was an obvious advantage to be second off.

"My first push was decent and I then had a near perfect first 9 corners taking much more speed than ever before into corner 10, known as “Shady”. The extra speed caught me out somewhat and I didn’t steer hard enough on the entry, causing me to go higher and higher in the corner. This was all well
and good, until the roof started coming towards me at am unusually fast rate - about 60mph! So I took some evasive action, steering off too hard and too early, which made me nudge not-so-gently into the wall. Fortunately, all the speed I had generated in the top half meant it wasn’t as bad as I thought and I gathered myself in the next corner and got back on track, making only one small mistake before the finish… It turned out to be the 3rd quickest run of everyone and I was even on for a track record before I hit out of corner 10!

"Then it all went wrong. The organisers and jury made a hash of sweeping to snow (among other things) for some of middle-ranked athletes, so the complaints started to fly and tempers rose. The jury then made a decision that I’ve never come across since starting in 1996 – they cancelled the first run and made it a one run race… Thus, instead of having over an hour to get ready, I had about 20 minutes to warm up and get my race kit on – joy.

"Though it was frustrating, I took it as a challenge and fancied my chances to repeat the run and perhaps make it a bit better. And so it was - except for about 20 metres of the track, I had a great run all the way with a perfect exit in 10 and no mistake down the bottom. Unfortunately, I messed up where it mattered, skidding though a patch of snow which cost me dear (my time splits went from positions 7, to 15, to 20), and to make matters worse the snow eased to give some of medium ranked athletes an advantage.

"Because of the strong bottom section, I picked up to finish 14th, but felt a bit robbed by the jury and weather so was not the best team-mate to have around for a day and a half! On the bright side, it’s encouraging to know that when I get it right I can be challenging to top guys, and I’m still ranked 11th with a strong track coming up next."
 

For more info on this events check out http://www.bobskeleton.org.uk/