High stakes, emotions in bobsleigh selection

Former Olympic teammates Helen Upperton and Heather Moyse are going head to head in Vancouver

Last Updated: Wednesday, January 27, 2010 | 6:36 PM ET

By Lindsey Craig, CBC Sports

Heather Moyse, left, and Kaillie Humphries won a gold medal at the World Cup event in Altenberg, Germany, on Dec. 19. (Matthias Rietschel/Getty Images)On Dec. 12, 2009, three women's bobsleigh teams stood on the World Cup podium in Altenburg, Germany, medals dangling from their necks.

Of the three teams, two were Canadian.

Pilot Helen Upperton of Calgary and brakeman Jennifer Ciochetti of Edmonton — racing in that competition as the Canada 1 sled - had taken silver.

Clinching gold in the Canada 2 sled was driver Kaillie Humphries of Calgary and brakeman Heather Moyse of Summerside, P.E.I.

When the camera flashes began to go off and the athletes began to pose, it was clear that although all four women had "Canada" written across their uniforms, they made up two distinct teams.

Not once did either of the Canadian teams turn toward each other for a group celebration.

They may have been part of the broader Team Canada, but, in competition, they were opponents.

Four years earlier, the dynamic was much different.

At that time, Upperton and Moyse were teammates in the same sled. They raced together at the 2006 Winter Games in Turin, Italy, and came within five one-hundredths of a second of winning bronze.

Moyse, left, and Helen Upperton raced together at the 2006 Olympics. (Frank Gunn/Canadian Press)This season, they've been racing separately.

Upperton secured her Olympic spot as a driver and had been testing out three other brakemen.

Meanwhile, Moyse has been teamed up with Humphries for nearly the entire season.

The stakes — and emotions — have been high. Each brakeman was competing for a ticket to Vancouver, and each pilot has been striving to race as the Canada 1 sled, considered the fastest.

What is clear is that Moyse and Upperton won't be racing together at the Vancouver Games.

So, what happened to split up the former teammates?

"You will have to ask Helen why she didn't want to push with me at the beginning of the season," said Moyse.

Welcome to the murky world of bobsleigh.

When selecting brakemen, the motto, "Let the best man win," doesn't always prevail.

"I guess the final say [about brakemen] is the coaches, but the final say also includes the view of the driver," Moyse said.

"So, if the driver is just not meshing well with the brakeman outside of pushing, they may not push together because the driver might say subjectively, 'I just don't feel as good with her in my sled'."

Different tracks, conditions

One reason Moyse and Upperton say it's difficult to compare brakemen is because they can't race side by side on a bobsleigh track with the same driver. (Norbert Millauer/Getty Images)Measuring which brakeman is the fastest can be a challenge, Moyse said.

"The only objective data is start times, but when you're pushing, you're also pushing with different drivers, so it's hard to have direct comparisons," she said.

Even if brakemen were to line up on a running track and race, it couldn't simulate the conditions of an actual bobsleigh event — where factors such as the sled itself; ice, snow and weather conditions; and the brakeman's driver all affect performance.

The same goes for training in the "ice house" in Calgary, where brakemen compete on an icy track pushing weighted sleds.

"That is a direct comparison, but that still isn't an indication of what you're going to be like at the top of the track," Moyse explained.

"Some brakemen are a lot better on flatter tracks because they're a lot stronger and some are better on steeper tracks because they're a lot faster."

So, if a brakeman's performance can't be calculated in isolation, how do pilots choose who will push for them?

'It's how you feel'

When asked why she didn't select Moyse as a brakeman after Turin, Upperton said it had bothered her that she and Moyse didn't have a strong history prior to the 2006 Games. (Moyse had only begun bobsleigh racing a few months before she and Upperton hit the Olympic track.)

"I thought how much better it would be if I was in a position next time around to do it with a teammate I'd had for a long time, so no matter what the result is, it means something more to both of you," Upperton said.

But, with four more years of training between Turin and Vancouver, wouldn't that have been enough time to get on the same page?

"I guess, somewhere deep down, it's how you feel," said Upperton. "In the end, you have a job to do, so it's getting in the best position to get the job done."

Upperton added that in the year leading up to the 2010 Games, coaches may have preferred to test Moyse with other pilots since, in January 2009, Upperton suffered a rib injury and wasn't in top form.

The subjectivity involved with choosing a brakeman is even more critical in an Olympic year, when a brakeman's dreams live or die based on a driver's personal decision.

Since Canada qualified two sleds for the Games, and since women's bobsleigh doesn't have a four-man event, it means only two brakemen will have the chance to compete at the Vancouver Olympics.

There were four women in the running.

In addition to Moyse and Ciochetti, Shelley-Ann Brown, of Pickering, Ont., has also been racing with Upperton, as has Amanda Moreley of Surrey, B.C. — although less so in recent competitions.

The mystery was revealed on Wednesday when Bobsleigh Canada announced Brown would be competing with Upperton.

"It means 50 per cent of our Olympic brakemen in the running will just be watching the Olympics on TV," Upperton said prior to the selection.

"It's very complicated. Because they're all so close in ability, it's really hard to decide who should be sliding with who … We're lucky as pilots because we know, barring injury, we've qualified, but brakemen have no clue who's going. It's very hard."

Equal rotation

Since Moyse has raced with Humphries virtually the entire 2009-10 season, Upperton's point is especially significant for her own sled.

This year, the pilot has rotated between Ciochetti and Brown equally.

In eight World Cup races since Nov. 11, 2009, she's raced four World Cups with each. In fact, she has switched between the two as recently as the final two World Cup events this month.

On Jan. 16, Upperton placed ninth with Ciochetti as the Canada 2 sled. On Jan. 22, she and Brown came seventh, also as Canada 2.

One month before the Games, Upperton said she had "no idea" who she'd be racing with on the Olympic track.

After the announcement, Humphries said she didn't know Upperton's reasons for selecting Brown over Ciochetti. But she added she has confidence in Brown's abilities at the Games. “Shelley and Heather are the two fastest brakeman, arguably I the world, that we have in Canada—so they both definitely deserve to be there and to be racing,” Humphries said.

Humphries takes over

Being classified as Canada 1 or 2 has been another interesting storyline among the Canadian sliders.

At the beginning of the season, Upperton was pilot No. 1.

But as Humphries and Moyse progressed, and then triumphed — with four podium finishes in eight World Cup races — it wasn't long before Humphries took over the No.1 spot.

With only one podium finish in just as many events (with Ciochetti), Upperton was relegated to Canada 2.

On the men's side, a similar takeover occurred.

Starting the season as captain of Canada 1 was bobsleigh legend Pierre Lueders of Edmonton, who's entering his fifth Olympics.

But as the season moved forward and his Canada 2 counterpart, Lyndon Rush, of Humboldt, Sask., began appearing on the podium more often than Lueders, a swap in titles was made.

Personal divide

Though they won a silver medal together at the 2006 Games, brakeman Lascelles Brown, left, recently stated he would never race with Pierre Lueders again. (Eric Feferberg/Getty Images)Widening the divide between the two teams was a public declaration made by Rush's brakeman, Lascelles Brown, of Calgary.

Citing personal reasons, Brown said he would never again race with Lueders, whom he pushed to a silver medal at the 2006 Olympics.

But, just as Moyse's career continued to thrive behind a new driver, Brown, too, has found ample success with a new pilot.

Given their results from this past World Cup season, he and Rush have arguably taken over as Canada's best hope for a medal in men's bobsleigh.

While Rush and Brown have been a consistent pair throughout the year, Lueders has been rotating through several brakemen.

When asked about the difficulty of selecting his brakemen, Lueders denied that subjectivity enters into it.

An athlete's effort and results speak for themselves, he said, regardless of any other factors.

"It's the athletes who decide," Lueders said.