BOBSLEIGH: The tourists in Calgary, Canada, enjoyed the ride of their lives last weekend courtesy of one Aussie bloke who is driving bobsleighs for a living while training for the Olympic Winter Games.

Thirty-three-year-old Heath Spence has based himself in Calgary in a bid to get as much track practice and cement his position as pilot for the Australian Bobsleigh Team.

“I think I have done more downhill runs than any other pilot,” Spence said, who charges tourists $75 for the thrill of accompanying him in a bobsleigh down the track.

“I have done 78 bobsleigh runs in the last three days, when you normally only do two in a day. The only way to get better is to be going down the track.”

The Melbourne born rugby player was in Calgary in 2008, trialling for the local provincial rugby side when he came across the winter sport. He loved it and immediately hung up his rugby boots for the sliding sport.

Two years later he was in contention for the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, however was unlucky to qualify as the brakeman and decided to switch his focus to being a pilot in a bid to make the Sochi Games.

“The pilot is really the only safe position on the team,” Spence said. “And now that is me.”

There is not a spare minute in Spence’s day. He is in training six days a week with double sessions three days a week.

He is up before dawn and works from 6am – 10am as a personal trainer. Then it is off to the gym to do his own training with strength and conditioning coach Cristiano Paes. The 2002 bobsleigh Olympian for Brazil is also the coach of the Brazilian bobsleigh team.

“I am in the gym for about four hours, doing a mixture of lifts like clean and jerk and dead lifts as well as bounding, jumping and hopping.

“Then it is off to the Ice House for a push session. We practice the first 140m of the track, sprinting and pushing the sled over and over again. We film it, time it, analyse it and then do it all again.

“After that it is a recovery session which might be yoga, jui jitsu or a stretch session,” he said.

At 102kg Spence does not need to bulk up, so his 2500 calorie/day diet is high in protein.

“I eat a lot of chicken, tuna and meat,” he said. “Some of the other boys are looking to get bigger so they are more into the carbs than I am.”

Six months out from the Winter Olympics, Spence is in great shape and is in the process of setting up a testing camp for the Australian bobsleigh team at the Ice House, a specific push facility in Calgary.

“We have been lucky to parallel our training with the Canadian bobsleigh and skeleton teams and access their facilities at the Ice House,” he said.

The camp will include single brakeman pushes and side pushes to determine the pushing ability of the brakeman and rank them accordingly.

“It’s the fairest and most unbiased way of selecting the team for the first races,” Spence said.

“From there we will have time and the ability to bring the 4-man sled into the Ice House to repeat team and different combination pushes. This will allow us to see which is the fastest combination and positions for the fastest starts.”

Spence is determined to improve on his relatively successful 2012/13 World Cup season, where he trialled different brakemen in the 2 and 4-man bobs. He was ranked 32nd overall out of 46 in the 2-man, and 39th out of 44 in the 4-man.

At Altenberg in Germany, Spence and Lucas Mata finished in 16th place. The pair also competed in Sochi in the Olympic Test Event finishing a credible 26th out of 32 sleds.

In the 4-man, Spence and Ben Lisson, Duncan Harvey and Anthony Ryan finished in 25th place in Park City, USA. His next best result was 29th in the 4-man with Gareth Nichols, Lisson and Mata at Igls, Austria.

The Victorian has sacrificed much and dedicated almost everything over the past few years to his Olympic bobsleigh dreams. Despite the lack of resources, funding and geographical challenges he believes being Australian gives the team an extra edge.

“We are a rare novelty. People don’t expect us to do well and when everyone else is serious we are having fun. We are the only team in the Southern Hemisphere to have a World Cup spot,” he said.

“We also have to do more than bobsleigh athletes from other teams – we don’t have a mechanic, a coach or video analysis. We have to work together to fulfil these roles. This adds to our team morale.”

Whether Spence qualifies for the Winter Olympics or not, one gets the feeling he will be around for a long time yet.

“This is what I do, it is what I love to do and what I do every day.”

Frances Cordaro
olympics.com.au
@AUSOlympicTeam