If anyone had asked Barrhead native Melissa Lotholz at the beginning of bobsleigh season if she would like to share the brakeman duties for Kalie Humphries on Canada’s top bobsled women’s team — the answer would have been a resounding no.
As an elite amateur athlete, Lotholz always wants to be the one called upon to be on the track helping Canada One to victory and after serving as Humphries’ lone brakeman as part of last year’s World Cup circuit champions with Humphries, she felt she was the favourite going in.
However, reflecting back, she realizes the coaching staff’s decision to platoon Cynthia Appiah for the first half of the season to see who would earn the spot as Humphries’ brakeman was not only the best thing for the national team, but for her as well.
“This season has been full of ups and downs. I have had my best performances and my worst results and being put in the position of having to fight for my position has been, to say the least, challenging,” Lotholz explained in a telephone interview from a hotel room in Munich, Germany, on Feb. 7. “But the whole process has taught me a lot about myself and has made me a better athlete and person.”
The rationale behind the decision was not only to find out who would be the best fit for Humphries, two-time Olympic gold medalist in 2010 and 2014, who is considered Canada’s top women’s bobsleigh pilot, but to strengthen the rest of the team and give the program three sleds capable of finishing in the top 10 in the world.
In the first World Cup race (Dec. 2-3) of the season in Whistler, Appiah got the nod to race with Humphries on Canada One, while Lotholz teamed up with pilot Alysia Rissling in her first World Cup race. Canada One won gold while Rissling and Lotholz finished fourth.
In the next race in Lake Placid, 10 days later, Lotholz found herself rooting from the sidelines, playing a supportive role, while Humphries and Appiah slid their way to a bronze medal.
After the Christmas break the World Cup season resumed in Europe, where the coaching staff decided that for the most part they would alternate who would be Humphries’ brakeman. The first race was in Altenberg, Germany, on Jan. 7-8, with Lotholz drawing the nod.
“Altenberg has always been a fun place for me because it is a place where a lot of my firsts happened,” she said.
In her rookie season (2014-15), Lotholz earned her first World Cup medal (bronze). It is also the location where she received her first World Cup gold medal a year later.
“And to be able to do it with Kailie is extra special because she just drives the track so well there,” she said, adding last season the pair set a new track record.
This season the duo, while not breaking the track record, continued their success, winning gold.
The next race took them to Winterberg (Jan. 14 -15), Germany and it was Appiah’s turn to pair with Humphries. They finished fifth. Lotholz watched from the sidelines, playing a supportive role, not only for Humphries, but for Canada’s other two teams — Alysia Rissling who teamed with brakeman Genevieve Thibault and development pilot Christine De Bruin who was paired with brakeman Catherine Medeiros, which finished 11 and 18, respectively. However, Lotholz did compete in Winterberg as part of the women’s four-person sled in the four-person men’s event.
Last season at about the mid-season mark last year, Lotholz and Humphries, along with Appiah and Genevieve Thibault, became the first all-women four person bobsleigh team to compete in a World Cup event against teams composed completely of men.
“It went really well, but we finished in last place,” Lotholz said, adding it is something the team (Humphries, Appiah, Lotholz and Kasha Lee, another brakeman in Canada’s development program) expected. “We just don’t have the weight or the strength and speed to match what the men are doing, so we are really competing against ourselves in most of the four men events.”
She added, by competing in the four-person event they hope to convince the sport’s governing bodies to create a four-women’s event, which would be included in the Olympics. In the majority of the World Cup events they are the only four-women team, but in Igls, Austria three races later, there were three women’s sleds, two from Canada, the other being piloted by Rissling and one from Romania. Lotholz’s team piloted by Humphries won the informal competition between the three sleds.
For the race in St. Moritz, Switzerland, on Jan. 21, Lotholz returned to the two-person event in Canada One.
“St. Moritz is really cool. It is the birthplace of bobsleigh and is the circuits only natural track and it’s a place I wouldn’t have gone if it weren’t for bobsled,” she said. “It’s has that classic European place, where everyone is wearing furs, and playing polo on the frozen lakes.”
Although Lotholz said as an athlete there is always pressure to perform, before the race in St. Moritz she felt it that much more.
For the better part of the last three seasons Lotholz, for the majority of the races, has been the brakeman for Humphries and she felt this race was her last chance to prove that she should be on Canada’s top sled.
“Cynthia is an amazing athlete and we’ve been going head-to-head all year and she has been posting these amazing numbers and I was starting to really feel it (pressure),” she said.
Thanks to her family and friends in Barrhead, along with working with a sport psychologist, Lotholz has been able to continue to perform at a high level.
“I honestly haven’t had more fun bobsledding and the result (silver missing gold by one one-hundredth of a second) was just a cherry on top,” she said. “I guess I just got to this point where I realized I can only control what I can control and was able to perform without that over my head and just my heart and soul. For me it was actually a pretty spiritual experience.”
St. Mortiz was also the first time since Humphries and Lotholz have been paired, that they had the fastest push time.
In Konigssee, Germany, on Jan. 29, Lotholz competed with Rissling in Canada Two, finishing ninth. Canada One with Humphries and Appiah finished in fourth. A week later, in Igls, Austria, in the final race before the World Championships Humphries and Lotholz took home silver.
When asked what it was like to have to work and even room with her biggest rival (Appiah was her roommate when the Leader called) she said it is easier than one would expect.
“It’s an interesting dynamic that’s for sure, but at the end of the day it comes down to respect for each other and I think it helps that we do four-man together,” she said, adding the competition has made both of them better athletes. “Yes, we both want to be the girl in the sled and be the one on the podium, but both of us, besides doing this for ourselves are doing it for our country and that’s more important.”
Currently Humphries, Appiah, Lotholz trio stand on top of the World Cup standings. The World Championships women’s event is scheduled for Friday, February 17th at 2:15 local (6:15 MST) &Saturday, February 18th at 3:15 local (7:15 MST). You can catch it live at www.cbc.ca/player/sports/Sliding. Lotholz will race with Humphries in Canada One.
