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Barrhead resident wins silver medal at World Championships

One day after returning from PyeongChang, South Korea, Melissa Lotholz can’t wait to return.
Cynthia Appiah (l), Melissa Lotholz (m) and Kailie Humphries after being awarded their silver medals and second place over all World Cup trophies after the final event in
Cynthia Appiah (l), Melissa Lotholz (m) and Kailie Humphries after being awarded their silver medals and second place over all World Cup trophies after the final event in Pyeongchang.

One day after returning from PyeongChang, South Korea, Melissa Lotholz can’t wait to return.

And the next time she hopes that instead of a commemorative T-shirt or some cute souvenir she’ll return home with an Olympic gold medal as part of Kailie Humphries two-women bobsleigh team.

However, the Barrhead native, an Olympic medal isn’t a given or her spot on Canada’s No. 1 sled with Humphries, but she said the last three years on the National Bobsleigh Team has put her in good position to compete for the spot.

“I have learned a lot in my time in bobsled, especially this season last year,” she said, adding the competition with Cynthia Appiah to see who would be Humphries brakeman made her a better athlete.

For most of the World Cup 2016-17 season the pair alternated positions behind Humphries. When they weren’t paired with Humphries on Canada One, they were usually teamed with up-and-comer pilot Alysia Rissling.

Coaching staff made this decision so they will find out not only who is the best fit with Humphries, but give the program its best chance at winning multiple medals at next year’s Olympics.

By the time the World Championships, were held in Konigssee, Germany, in mid-February, Lotholz had secured her position with Humphries and Canada One.

“World champs were a bitter-sweet time for me,” Lotholz said, adding the team as a whole had their best performance of the season.

Humphries and Lotholz took silver in Canada One, while Canada Two with pilot Alyssa Rissling, in only her second World Cup race, and brakeman Appiah placed sixth place.

“We ended up finishing up behind the Americans [Elana Meyers Taylor] by only 300th of a second after four runs, which is insanely close, but both Kailie and I have high expectations and we both know there were places we could have improved. At the beginning of the event the Americans were out starting us by quite a bit,” she said.

At the World Championships, each team has four runs, split over two days.

Lotholz said the pair was especially disappointed with their starts on the first day.

“It is kind of a hard pill to swallow because that [push starts] is my main job and at the end of the Day 1 we knew we had underperformed,” she said.

On Day 2, their starts dramatically improved, unfortunately they couldn’t close the gap.

“Mentally it was hard to refocus, but to be able to jump back from about seventh in start time to where we should be, vying for top position — I think that speaks to our resiliency and I learned a lot from the experience,” Lotholz said.

After the women’s event, Lotholz and the rest of her teammates had the option of staying in Konigssee and watching the World Championships or taking a week off.

Lotholz opted to take the opportunity to visit Amsterdam in the Netherlands, with Christine De Bruin, a pilot with Canada’s development team, who also competed at the World Championships and alternate brakeman Alecia Beckford-Stewart.

It is De Bruin, who Lotholz credits for introducing her to the sport of bobsleigh. The pair literally ran in each other’s circles for years with both running track at the University of Alberta.

When not taking in the sights, the group trained at city’s Olympic training facility. After, the trio jetted off for three weeks of training at PyeongChang before the Olympic test event.

“PyeongChang is an interesting place. It isn’t a city, but a region,” she said. “I equate it to like Canada hosting the Olympics in a place like Revelstoke [B.C.].”

Although the Olympic test event, was an official World Cup circuit event, it is true purpose was to help Olympic organizers and give athletes a chance to learn the track.

As a result, Lotholz said their daily routine changed. During a regular World Cup event competitors have actual practice time on the track limited to one or two days, but in the test event there wasn’t such a limitation.

On a normal training day, Lotholz and her teammates had up to three training runs on the track.

In between training runs, would be spent on video review or preparing for the next day of training.

On the rare day off, many athletes would venture into the city about 30 minutes away and watch other Olympic test events, such as curling.

“The facilities PyeongChang look like they are going to be amazing,” Lotholz said, adding she is especially impressed with the bobsleigh track. “Most times, at a track, we warm up on an asphalt road, or in a parking lot, but in PyeongChang they have this mondo running surface.”

As for the competition, both Humphries and Lotholz were disappointed with both their performances. Going into the event Canada One was leading the World Cup standings. In order for the Humphries, Lotholz, and now Appiah, to finish first overall, they had to finish fifth or lower, something that had only happened once before (with Appiah) as brakeman and the Americans (Jamie Greubel Poser) had to win.

“And that’s exactly what happened. It was the perfect storm,” Lotholz said of their fifth place finish. “The good news is that we learned a lot, from not only our experience, but the track that Canada proved it will be a force to be reckoned with in women’s bobsleigh.”

In what was somewhat of a surprise, Rissling’s Canada Two sled with Appiah as breakman finished third. It was Rissling’s first World Cup medal.

“It’s really exciting because it just shows you how much depth we have as a team. I thinks it’s definitely in the realm of possibility of having three sleds qualify for the Olympics and have all of them finish in the Top Eight.”

After taking a short break, Lotholz will meet with the coaching staff to come up with a plan for the upcoming season as well as resume her training.

Her future, in part might be connected to the number of sleds Canada attempts to qualify for the Olympics. How many sleds a nation send to the Olympics is partially determined by how many World Cup points.

As one of the current powers in bobsled, Canada will have two sleds in the Olympics and to qualify a third, they will have to finish in the Top Two, from all the other nation’s third sleds.

Because of this dynamic, she said it could make the decision of who slides with whom more interesting. Depending on the World Cup standing, coaches might decide to pair pilots and brakemen they normally wouldn’t to qualify three sleds.

Whatever is decided, Lotholz hopes to be among the teams going to PyeongChang.

“At the end of the day as athletes, we can only control what we can control,” she said, adding it is a lot like farming. “All you can do is put in the work, do your best and hope you will have a good harvest.”


Barry Kerton

About the Author: Barry Kerton

Barry Kerton is the managing editor of the Barrhead Leader, joining the paper in 2014. He covers news, municipal politics and sports.
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