British Bobsleigh Association
Lee Johnston still has work to do to find speed on the course
16 February 2006
Day 13: Thursday 16th February
Lee Johnston and Dan Humphries are 12th and 9th fastest in training while Nicola and Jackie get away to a fast start with Colin Jackson
(Daily Reports courtesy of The Winter Sports Agency)
The second day of training went well today with Lee 12th and 9th fastest sled. His top speed is still a little down but the team will be working on that tomorrow with a concerted coaching effort towards the bottom of the track.
On top of being up at the track for sliding, Martin and Karl are still training hard, running and weight lifting in the gym plus plyometric training, aiming to peak for the 4man race next week of course and both are getting sharper under the watchful eyes of Paul and Dean. On top of the sliding and training they have been helping Tom work on the sleds, spending a couple of hours up at the container aligning the 2-man and fixing Lee's push handle to ensure it closes away properly.
Nicola and Jackie are in good spirits and Nicola has been at the track for the last two days watching the guys in action, which Tom says is a purely professional interest of course! She says it's beneficial to see the different sleds on the track and look at which are the fast lines and just as importantly to find out what not to do. She was also able to contribute to the team effort to feed back to Lee on his runs. As for Jackie, she says that as she only sees the floor of the bob on the way down it was more beneficial for her to check out the back of her eyelids for a while.
The afternoon involved a press conference and an interview by Colin Jackson for the BBC - the last opportunity for the press until after the men's 2-man and the girls have raced. The boys thought it was great to chat with a legendry sportsman, while the girls had "a quiet cup of coffee" with him afterwards.
Dean and Paul are still not accredited at the moment, much to the anger of Jo who has been chasing the FIBT for the last two days.
This evening the girls performed some excellent sprint training in the car park then everyone congregated on the team HQ to watch Shelly in the skeleton as she landed team GB's first medal. Karl still has to pinch himself to double check he's not dreaming. But the impact of seeing "one of us" getting a medal was the realisation that its really possible - not just a distant fantasy.
Karl and Martin had a particularly early night as in the morning the material commission will arrive to check the sleds before racing begins. There are dozens of weights, measurements and material rules that sleds must meet and a few millimeters could mean disqualification from a race.
The second day of training went well today with Lee 12th and 9th fastest sled. His top speed is still a little down but the team will be working on that tomorrow with a concerted coaching effort towards the bottom of the track.
On top of being up at the track for sliding, Martin and Karl are still training hard, running and weight lifting in the gym plus plyometric training, aiming to peak for the 4man race next week of course and both are getting sharper under the watchful eyes of Paul and Dean. On top of the sliding and training they have been helping Tom work on the sleds, spending a couple of hours up at the container aligning the 2-man and fixing Lee's push handle to ensure it closes away properly.
Nicola and Jackie are in good spirits and Nicola has been at the track for the last two days watching the guys in action, which Tom says is a purely professional interest of course! She says it's beneficial to see the different sleds on the track and look at which are the fast lines and just as importantly to find out what not to do. She was also able to contribute to the team effort to feed back to Lee on his runs. As for Jackie, she says that as she only sees the floor of the bob on the way down it was more beneficial for her to check out the back of her eyelids for a while.
The afternoon involved a press conference and an interview by Colin Jackson for the BBC - the last opportunity for the press until after the men's 2-man and the girls have raced. The boys thought it was great to chat with a legendry sportsman, while the girls had "a quiet cup of coffee" with him afterwards.
Dean and Paul are still not accredited at the moment, much to the anger of Jo who has been chasing the FIBT for the last two days.
This evening the girls performed some excellent sprint training in the car park then everyone congregated on the team HQ to watch Shelly in the skeleton as she landed team GB's first medal. Karl still has to pinch himself to double check he's not dreaming. But the impact of seeing "one of us" getting a medal was the realisation that its really possible - not just a distant fantasy.
Karl and Martin had a particularly early night as in the morning the material commission will arrive to check the sleds before racing begins. There are dozens of weights, measurements and material rules that sleds must meet and a few millimeters could mean disqualification from a race.