Music: {allcanada} BOBSLED TEAM HIRES "PIT CREW" TO FREE UP TIME FOR ATHLETES

Sunday, December 5, 2010

{allcanada} BOBSLED TEAM HIRES "PIT CREW" TO FREE UP TIME FOR ATHLETES

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CALGARY -- Despite a pair of crashes during training runs, Lyndon Rush returned to pilot his two-man sled to a silver medal at last month's season-opening bobsled World Cup event in Whistler, B.C.

In previous years, Rush would have had to scramble to repair his own sled, but not this season because the Canadian bobsled team has hired its own pit crew of sorts.

"Normally then you're busy for the next two days with all your spare time getting your sled back, but I went to the gym like I normally would," said Rush, a native of Humboldt, Sask., who's in his seventh season competing for Canada. "It's pretty nice, something that I never had before."

Giving athletes time to concentrate on competing is exactly why the Canadian bobsled team struck a deal with Dutch engineering firm Eurotech Viking Engineering BV to keep both the men's and women's sleds in tip-top shape.

"Bobsleigh races are won by thousandths of a second, so any competitive advantage a team gets can mean the difference between finishing first and eighth," said Don Wilson, chief executive officer for Bobsleigh Canada Skeleton.

As Eurotech's general director, Wim Noorman takes a great amount of pride in what his company can do to give bobsled pilots an advantage.

"I think it's good that we take a part of the work out of their hands and that they can concentrate on what's going on, on training and on being a good pilot and being a good brakeman," said Noorman, whose firm will also continue to work with the Dutch bobsled team. "I think the reason why we came to Canada is because we see that we can deliver added value here. We take only a part of the cake and we are very happy to do that for Canada."

New Canadian coach Tom De-La-Hunty, who previously coached and competed for Great Britain before coaching the Dutch team at the 2010 Olympics, helped introduce Eurotech to the Canadian program.

"I've worked with these guys in Holland for the last four years," De-La-Hunty explained. "It's just a professional way of doing business. That's all we're trying to do is professionalize things. We want the athletes doing physical training, resting and actual competing and the technical staff to do the expert stuff of fixing sleds, preparing them and setting them up."

Thanks in part to the efforts of engineers Remco Mutsaerts and Marc Van Den Berg, the Canadian team has won three medals so far this season. In addition to Rush's second-place showing, Kaillie Humphries piloted her sled to a bronze medal in the women's bobsled competition in Whistler, while teammate Helen Upperton won bronze on Friday in Calgary in the second World Cup race of the season.

"It's always nice to win something and get a medal for sure," said Mutsaerts, while explaining it's their job to "just take the technical side away from the athletes, so they can focus more on their thing. That's the main role for now."

Van Den Berg agreed with his Dutch countryman's assessment.

"They can do their thing and we do our thing," said Van Den Berg.

The plan, he said, is to have Eurotech eventually design and build new sleds for the Canadian team.

"Our goal is to do the mechanical things and for next season, we'd like to build and bring our sled in the two-man," Van Den Berg said.

Mutsaerts and Van Den Berg will travel with the Canadian team to races in Park City, Utah, and Lake Placid, N.Y., this month, before the final four World Cup races take place in Europe in January and February.

"When they go over to Europe, we'll take the sleds to our factory and we'll rebuild them and make them ready for the second part of the World Cup," Noorman said.

So far, Rush has enjoyed having a pit crew so he can concentrate on his duties as a pilot.

"Normally I'd do it myself, but they just do it for me now," Rush said. "They're not just mechanics, they're engineers. They look at it in a different way. I've been really impressed with them. They're smart guys."