Canadian bobsleigh medals came under radar

Last Updated: Sunday, February 28, 2010 | 4:14 AM ET

By Brandon Hicks, CBC Sports

Left to right, Canada's Heather Moyse, Helen Upperton, Kaillie Humphries and Shelley-Ann Brown celebrate after winning gold and silver in women's two-man bobsleigh. (Ricardo Mazalan/Associated Press)

If you asked most experts a year ago who might win Olympic bobsleigh medals for Canada, they likely would've named two pilots: Helen Upperton and Pierre Lueders.

Less talked about were Kaillie Humphries and Lyndon Rush, but they ended up slowly taking centre stage as the season progressed, and that carried over to the Whistler Sliding Centre during the Vancouver Olympics.

Rush added a third Canadian bobsleigh medal Saturday by taking bronze in the four-man race, finishing just 1-100th of a second behind Andre Lange of Germany for silver. American Steven Holcomb blew away the field for gold.

This added to the historic result of Canada in the women's two-man race earlier in the week. Upperton did hit the podium, taking silver, but Humphries stole the show by winning gold.

Heading into the 2009-10 World Cup season, everybody was pegging Upperton and Lueders to lead the Canadian charge for Olympic medals in Vancouver.

Upperton, a Calgary native, was a slim fourth in Torino 2006 with then-brakeman Heather Moyse of Summerside, P.E.I. The 39-year-old Lueders, of Edmonton, was heading into his fifth Olympics already with two medals to his credit, gold in 1998 and silver in 2006 — both won in two-man.

But it was Rush, a Saskatchewan native now living in Sylvan Lake, Alta., and Calgary's Humphries who turned heads during the World Cup season.

High rankings

Rush was ranked sixth in the two-man and eighth in the four-man event on the circuit before the Olympics began.

The 29-year-old's brakeman is Calgary's Lascelles Brown, who was teamed with Lueders when the pair won silver in Torino and said in the months leading up to the Vancouver Games that he would never race with Lueders again.

Lueders was ranked 10th in the two-man and 12th in the four-man this season, and decided on CFL running back Jesse Lumsden of Edmonton to be his brakeman for the two-man race in Vancouver. Edmonton's Neville Wright worked the brakes in the four-man race.

Upperton, who picked Shelley-Ann Brown of Pickering, Ont., to be her new brakeman this season, was ranked a respectable fifth in the world coming into the Games. But Calgary's Humphries, now with Moyse working the brakes, was ranked second.

Both teams put on a show at Whistler on Tuesday and Wednesday. Upperton, piloting Canada 2, ended the first heat in fifth spot, but moved to fourth, third and, finally, the silver-medal spot in each successive heat after that.

They couldn't match Humphries and Moyse in Canada 1, though, who led from wire to wire.

"It felt great coming up the outrun and having coaches put up the No. 1 finger and cheering,'' Humphries said. "It was a bit of relief. We did it!"

Upperton and Brown looked just as ecstatic with silver as Humphries and Moyse were with gold, as both teams got to hear O Canada play at the medal ceremony.

And the result sets up a fantastic in-country rivalry for the next few years.

"Yeah, there's a rivalry," Humphries said. "But I think it's a healthy rivalry and I think it really pushes both of us to be better because of it."

Canada took bronze in the four-man bobsled race. (Jin-man Lee/Associated Press)

For Rush, his bronze in the four-man race with David Bissett of Edmonton, Chris Le Bihan of Grande Prairie, Alta., and Brown is a little bit of redemption for a disastrous two-man race.

Rush and Brown were in contention for a gold medal after the first of four runs, but couldn't hold it together during a torrid second run and crashed, crossing the finish line on their side. They did their final two runs and finished 15th, while Lueders and Lumsden were fifth.

Even bronze in the four-man was a result that took a while for Rush to feel good about. He was leading the Germans through the first three runs but saw silver just slip away in the last run down the track.

"It wasn't triumphant then, it's starting to become triumphant now," Rush said. "We had 'em for three heats and to give it away in the last heat, I was mad.

"Yeah, we won an Olympic bronze, but I like racing, right, and when you come up short on the last heat, you're mad."

It was Canada's first Olympic medal in the four-man race since 1964.

Lueders, in likely his final Olympics, was fifth with a rookie team consisting of Lumsden, Wright, and Justin Kripps, from Summerland, B.C.

"I’d say the average [bobsleigh athlete competes in] two Olympics, maybe three. But I get to five, and I’m pretty proud of that," Lueders told CBCSports.ca in December.

Rush himself is not sure if he'll compete much longer, meaning that one or more rookies might be stepping into the driver's seat in Sochi 2014.