Don Osmond: In my opinion…

For those of you following my on Twitter, you know are aware that we crashed the bobsled yesterday during World Cup. First, and foremost, we are all ok despite the cuts, bruises and burns. (Nothing that can’t heal in about a week.)

Anyway, this was our first crash as a team; and I’ve gotta give a lot of credit to Jeremy. He did an exceptional job; it could have been worse. The elements that lead to the crash created a recipe for the perfect storm, if you will. The weeks preceding World Cup were spent fine tuning the sled and polishing the runners. Polished runners = Speed! The track was also in pristine condition. The track crew had spent days getting the ice ready and making sure every turn was flawless. Add in the fact that we gave Jeremy our fastest push start ever — 5.2 sec. Put all of those together; you’re going to go fast.

The first 10 of 15 turns were amazing. Jeremy had a perfect entry and exit in every turn. In fact, turn 6 was so nice that we really felt the G’s pushing on us. Everything was awesome! Though no one saw, I was grinning from ear to ear. I just knew we were going to have our fastest time ever.

It wasn’t until turn 11 when I notice Jeremy’s shoulders leaning into the turn a lot harder than ever before. As we exited the turn, the strangest sensation came over me. “We’re going to flip over.” We were on 2 runners by this point and as we entered turn 12, the sled came to rest on its side. It wasn’t a crash or a bang; it was as if it was gently laid on it’s left side. From then on out, we were on our side through turns 12 – 15. We obviously didn’t have enough momentum to finish the track, so we slid back and forth between turns 14 and 15 until the sled came to rest at the low point of the track.

It wasn’t until we all got out that we noticed Brad was missing. Apparently, he kicked out of the sled in turn 13 when he couldn’t find his handles to hold himself in the sled. He was getting badly burned on his shoulder and decided it would be better to kick out. I think he got the brunt of the track with his back burned and cuts on his elbows and ankle. Jeremy hurt his knee pretty bad. I bruised my hand, my knee and got a light burn on my left shoulder. Dan seemed to walk away with not much at all.

During the crash Jeremy was able to get deep into the front of the sled, and with Brad out of the back, Dan was able to duck below the sides of the sled. Unfortunately, my head was sticking out and I was riding the side wall from time to time. The whole time I was thinking, “Oh man! I love this helmet. Now it’s all ruined!” I know, I know; how stupid is that? I’m doing 83 mph on my head, and I’m worried that my helmet is getting ruined.

So, the damage to the sled. Well here I’ll show you. A picture is worth a thousand words, right?

So call me crazy, but I think this crash brought us closer together as a team than before. It’s not going to stop us from sliding — well, at least until we can get the sled fixed.

By the way, we called our friend who was recording times on the track to find out how fast we were going, since those sleds are not equipped with speedometers. 83 mph! I think that’s the fastest we’ve ever gone before. I’m sure we would have beat our fastest time.

Just to give you an idea of what it looked like… No, this is not us. We’re still looking for video of it.

I love this sport!