Athlete Bios
Bobsleigh
Canada's Upperton won't repeat '06
Last Updated: Friday, February 5, 2010 | 3:45 PM ET
New York Times for CBC Sports
Pilot Helen Upperton and Heather Moyse compete on Feb. 20 at the 2006 Games. They missed the bronze medal by 5 one-hundredths of a second. (Donald Miralle/Getty Images)It is doubtful that anyone will know the Whistler Sliding Centre as well as Helen Upperton of Canada. Upperton, a native of Calgary, will look to use her home country advantage to improve upon her fourth-place finish in the two-woman bobsled competition at the 2006 Olympics in Turin, Italy.
The finish was the best ever for a Canadian female bobsledder in the Olympics, but not enough to satisfy Upperton.
"Finishing fourth at the Olympics is the worst position to end up," Upperton told NBC. "I thought, 'This could be it. That could be my only chance. I might never go to the Olympics again.' I can think of a hundred things that I could have done just differently that would have put me on the podium for Canada, and for my teammate and I was just … it's devastating."
Upperton, 30, who finished fourth at the 2008 world championships, has collected 14 World Cup and world championship medals. Along her athletic journey, Upperton has also collected broken arms and broken feet and had multiple knee operations. She has healed from a rib injury that hindered her last year.
Upperton was born in Kuwait, spending a year there before her family moved across the world, ultimately landing in Calgary. She was a triple jumper at the University of Texas before taking up bobsledding in 2002.
"Most of the time you're doing a sport and you either don't quite make it to an Olympic Games in that sport or you get bored of it or you get injured and the bobsled like pounces on you and they're like, 'You should come and try bobsleigh, it's really fun.'" Upperton told NBC. "And you're thinking, 'who does that?' But it was sort of like that with me, too. I was like, 'women do bobsleigh?' I didn't even know."
Upperton is also superstitious. She chews gum while piloting and has her hair done by her sledmate, Shelley-Ann Brown, each race day.
