Music: {allcanada} Lueders retires, takes Bobsleigh Canada gig

Thursday, July 1, 2010

{allcanada} Lueders retires, takes Bobsleigh Canada gig

CALGARY -- Canada's most decorated bobsleigh pilot is retiring to work with the next generation of sliders.

Pierre Lueders, winner of Olympic gold and silver medals and eight world championship medals, announced Thursday he's finished competing and will be the pilot coach for Canada's World Cup and Europa Cup teams.

The 39-year-old from Edmonton will get his feet wet coaching the developmental Europa Cup team the first half of the 2010-11 season before joining the World Cup team and helping Canada prepare for the world championship.

"Pierre raised the bar throughout his career and allowed Canadian bobsleigh athletes to believe they too can be Olympic champions," Bobsleigh Canada Skeleton CEO Don Wilson said in a statement. "I truly believe Pierre's innovative driver development initiatives will continue to raise the overall driving skill level of the Canadian bobsleigh program."

Lueders competed in five Olympics and won 88 World Cup medals during his 20-year career. He won six overall World Cup titles in two-man bobsleigh and one in the four-man.

He and brakeman Dave MacEachern won Olympic gold in two-man bobsleigh at the 1998 Games. Lueders and Lascelles Brown were silver medallists at the 2006 Games. Lueders' sleds finished fifth in both two-man and four-man events at the 2010 Olympics in Whistler, B.C.

BCS also announced Duff Gibson will take over as head coach of the national skeleton team and that Tom De-La-Hunty has been recruited from Britain to be head coach of the World Cup bobsleigh team.

Gibson, the first Canadian to win skeleton Olympic gold in 2006, had been working in the skeleton program as a developmental coach since his retirement. De-La-Hunty coached and competed at eight Olympics for Britain.

The World Cup season kicks off Nov. 22 at the Whistler Sliding Centre.