It seems like a contradiction.
In order to be the best and win one of the coveted spots on the national bobsleigh team, it means helping your competition to be the best and possibly taking your position.
However, for Barrhead native Melissa Lotholz and Canadian Bobsleigh Team veteran, it makes perfect sense.
“On the women’s team, we have chosen to support one another and celebrate each other’s successes. And it is one of the reasons why we are so resilient and successful,” she said.
Admittedly, Lotholz said it is not always the easiest thing to do especially when the person you are helping with is someone you have been competing against all season.
What Lotholz is referring to is her recent pairing with Kori Hol as brakeman at the Canadian Bobsleigh Championships in Calgary in late February and later in March in Whistler in the Whistler, B.C., despite the fact they have been competing the entire season against each other as bobsleigh pilots in the North American Cup circuit as part of Canada’s NextGen developmental team.
The reason the Canadian coaching staff decided to temporarily move Lotholz back to brakeman was to mentor Hol who would be competing in her first two World Cup events.
Lotholz has been on the Canadian National Bobsleigh team for five years, the first four as brakeman where she amassed 17 World Cup medals, including two World Championship silver medals as well as a seventh-place finish at the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics.
In September, she announced her decision to move to the front seat and train to be a pilot.
“I got a chance to play a very unique role and help Kori get in the zone and do her best,” Lotholz said.
She added it is usually the driver, who is the more experienced and therefore takes more of a mentoring role.
Lotholz said it did not take long to adjust to her old role.
“It is something, I have done many times in the past, with a lot of success, plus as part of monobob I have been competing in the same position and pushing at the back of the sled,” she said.
Monobob is a one-person sled unique to women’s bobsleigh.
In July 2018, the International Olympic Committee IOC decided to include Women’s Monobob in the Olympic program. The Monobob women will make their first Olympic appearance at the 2022 Winter Games in Beijing. Lothloz won the first ever monbob event in Calgary in January.
Although making the switch from the front seat to back seat was technically easy to do, she found it more difficult to know what she needed to do to best support Hol.
“Most of my career as brakeman, I was competing with Kaillie [Humphries] in a role where I was continually learning from her,” she said.
For years Humphries is a two-time Olympic gold medalist and has won the world cup championship on two other occasions.
“I had the opportunity to teach Kori certain things, but the reality is that mentors and teachers don’t just tell people to follow them, they try to empower them to reach their goals,” Lotholz said.
She added that because the Canadian Bobsleigh Team, especially in the women’s program, regularly switch partners, it also made the transition easier.
For example, she said Lotholz and Christine de Bruin had been paired together twice, one of the times being at the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics where they placed seventh.
The event also holds a special fondness for Lotholz, because although she has more than 25 World Cup starts under her helmet, the race in Calgary was her first senior circuit race.
“It was really special because I had the chance to share the sport with so many of my friends and family, who haven’t had a chance to see me, or my sport up close,” she said. “And it is something I wish everyone had the opportunity to do because it is so different to see a bobsled whip by you at 130, 140 and even 150 km/h.”
The other reason why it is special is because it might be the last time Calgary hosts a bobsleigh race of any kind.
In March, its operator, WinSport, has said that the track cannot continue to operate without significant renovations at a total cost of $25 million — well beyond what it can afford.
Despite the closure, Lotholz noted the national sliding teams, luge, bobsleigh, and skeleton will continue to use Calgary as its training base, at least for a portion of the year, mostly due to the ice-house, a facility that allows athletes to practice their push-starts.
Shortly after the event, the team moved to Whistler and the World Cup championships in early March.
The duos training got off to a bad start when Hol injured her shoulder during practice.
“But instead of letting that get us down, it united us more, and we said we just going to run our race,” she said, noting Whistler can be an intimidating track.
In addition to being, the fastest track on the World Cup circuit, it also has a well-deserved reputation for being one of the most technical.
“Corner 13 has the nickname of 50/50,” Lotholz said. “In fact, my only crashes in bobsleigh were at that corner. All of them this season, once as a brakeman and twice as a pilot.”
Going into the race the pair knew they wouldn’t be in contention for a podium finish so they just focused on being consistent.
And for the most part, they succeeded, Lotholz said, noting although they had one shaky run, they were pleased with their performance.
She added in the women’s event, about half of the teams, crashed during one of their four runs, something they managed to avoid.
The pair was also able to accomplish their other goal of beating Hol’s personal best time, something they did on their last run.
Because Lotholz didn’t have the pressure of finishing on the podium she had the opportunity to enjoy the event from a perspective she wouldn’t normally have.
“I learned a lot and got to experience both the Calgary and Whistler World Cup events, in a way through Kori’s eyes and just be there to support Team Canada and its goals,” she said, noting as an entire sliding team it was among Canada’s best finishes.
Her Olympic teammate Christine de Bruin, along with Kristen Bujnowsk won bronze, de Bruin also took home silver in skeleton. Canada also took home a pair of medals in the men’s events, silver and bronze in two and four-man events.
“It was just a fun moment for our team and I couldn’t be more proud of how everyone pulled together and operated as one unit,” she said.
As for what happens now, after taking some time off after the World Championships, Lotholz will resume dryland training and will join the NextGen team in September as a pilot.
Unlike other off-seasons, when she spends the majority of time in Calgary, starting in May she will move to Edmonton and train with national team coach and former Neville Wright at the University of Alberta, as well as taking a course that will take her one step closer to getting her degree in nutrition and food science.
