With a little more than a month to go to the PyeongChang Winter Olympics in South Korea, Barrhead native Melissa Lotholz is confident that she will not only be on the Olympic team, but paired with Kaillie Humphries on Canada’s top women’s bobsleigh crew.
However, that being said Lotholz is well aware that in a sport where success is measured in hundredths of a second anything can happen.
“Our program is as strong as it has ever been and when you have the talent and depth we have now at the brakeman’s position, you never know what will happen,” Lotholz said from behind the security area at Calgary’s International Airport on Dec. 29. Lotholz was at the airport to catch her flight to Germany where she join the rest of Team Canada to compete in a World Cup race in Altenburg.
For the first time in a number of years the women’s bobsleigh team has a number of experienced brakemen. Along with Lotholz, who is in her third year, there is Cynthia Appiah, who split duties with Lotholz on Canada One last season. Added into the mix this year is Heather Moyse, the veteran brakeman who pushed Humphries to both her Olympic gold medals, who came out of retirement this season after a three-and-a-half year layoff. Lotholz is also being pushed by newcombers Phylicia George, a two-time Olympic hurdler, and fellow track and field athlete Kristen Bujnowski, who competed in both the long jump and shot put.
At the start of this year’s World Cup season Lotholz thought she would end up sharing the duties once again with Appiah, who along with Lotholz, had the two best push-times during a late summer training camp at Calgary’s famed icehouse.
However, the coaches decided to keep Lotholz together with Humphries after the pair started off the season with three podium finishes — first place in Lake Placid, second in Park City and first in Whistler.
“Like any year the coaches are looking for ways we can as a team have the best finishes and placements possible and at the start of the season Kaillie and I were performing really well together so I guess it is just one of those things — if it isn’t broke don’t try to fix it,” she said.
Lotholz added the other reason why she believes she has been paired mainly with Humphries this season is in an effort to qualify as many sleds for the Olympics as possible.
“Normally Canada, like most other nations, gets to have two sleds at the Olympics, but for this Olympics, we are trying to qualify a third sled, which would really be a feather in our caps, because Canada has never had three women’s sleds at the Olympics,” she said.
Unfortunately for Team Canada, it looks like they will not be able to achieve the goal. In order to qualify three teams Canada’s third sled would have to be ranked second, or higher among all the other nations third-ranked bobsleighs. As of Dec. 29 Canada’s third sled is ranked ninth and in third place out of all the other nation’s third place sleds.
“Some of what we have been doing is to strategically switch out brakemen to qualify our third place sled, while still having solid results for Canada One and Two. There are still a couple of races left before everything is settled, but we definitely have our work cut out for us,” Lotholz said.
Although as elite athletes there is always pressure to perform, Lotholz said, but when you add the expectations that come from competing in front of the home fans it can be that much more.
“It is always fun to compete at home and Whistler is one of Kaillie’s favourite tracks and she has never lost, but there is definitely some extra pressure to make sure you are at your best,” she said.
After Whistler the team winged its way to Germany for a race in Winterburg and although Humphries and Lotholz performed well, they finished just off the podium, in fourth place 0.32 seconds behind Stephanie Schneider and Lisa Buckwitz of Germany.
“It is one of the more difficult tracks on the circuit and we learned a lot from the experience,” Lotholz said, adding one of the lessons she took away from Winterburg is to pay attention to the process and what her body is telling her.
She said going into Winterburg she knew her body wasn’t quite right. It turns out Lotholz was nursing a slight hamstring injury and while it wasn’t bad enough that she couldn’t compete, it could have reduced her effectiveness.
Because she wasn’t 100 per cent the coaching staff decided it would be best that Lotholz played a supporting role for the last World Cup race before the Christmas break in Innsbruck, Austria on Dec. 16. At that race Phylicia George teamed with Humphries on Canada One finishing in fourth.
After Innsbruck, Team Canada returned to Calgary for five days for training and to debrief on how the season was going so far. For Lotholz a lot of the time was spent undergoing various physiotherapy treatments.
“I was lucky things happened when they did because we had the luxury of time so that we did not have to rush things,” she said, adding she has recovered completely from her injury.
After the mini-camp in Calgary, Lotholz was able to come home to Barrhead to spend Christmas with her family.
“It is so nice to be able to come home and just relax and spend time with family, especially this year,” Lotholz said. “It’s an Olympic year. It’s stressful, there is a lot of pressure, expectations and there is a lot of on the line. To be able to have that time to just relax and catch up with friends and family it is just so important mentally so that you are at your best.”
When racing resumed on Jan. 6, in Altenburg, Germany, Lotholz took on a supportive role, cheering on her teammates. The Altenburg event is followed by races in St. Moritz, Switzerland and Königssee, Germany.
By the St. Mortiz race, Jan. 13, Canada should know if they were successful in qualifying three sleds and the announcement on who has made Canada’s Olympic bobsleigh squad is expected by Jan. 22.
To follow Lotholz on her journey visit her website at www.melissalotholz.ca. She is also on Instagram and Twitter.
