There are no guarantees on the Whistler Sliding Centre track - that much is certain, on a day that saw six of 25 sleds topple over, and the defending Olympic champion nearly do the same, during the first two heats of four-man bobsleigh racing on Friday (Feb. 26).
But if things continue as they started for Lyndon Rush and the Canada-1 sled, brakeman Chris Le Bihan might have a shiny, heavy toy to show his brand-new son Beau when they meet for the first time.
Former Whistler resident Le Bihan became a father on Feb. 20, with wife Naomi giving birth in Calgary while the brakeman for Rush's sled was here getting ready for the Games.
"She phoned me at 1:30 a.m., and she said, 'We've got a baby boy,' and I just launched out of bed, (yelling) 'yaaaaagh!' So pumped," Le Bihan said.
Now his team, piloted by Rush of Humboldt, Sask., sits second in the four-man race after the first two runs, having beaten the old four-man bobsleigh speed record on the Whistler track by reaching 153.2 kilometres per hour in their first run. They don't own the new speed record - that went to Germany's Karl Angerer, who reached 153.4 kilometres per hour - but they are four tenths of a second behind the leading American team driven by Steven Holcomb.
"We've just got to be consistent, do the same thing we did today and give 'er," Le Bihan said of his team's chances to bring home a medal after tomorrow's final two runs.
Germany's Andre Lange, the two-time Olympic four-man bobsleigh champion and four-time world champion, sits in third place after setting start records with his team in both runs. Lange, whose performance in winning the 2010 Olympic two-man event was described as flawless, nearly tipped his sled in his second run, but recovered and still posted the third-fastest run time.
"Andre should be kissing his lucky horseshoe, because he was over. It's unbelievable that he's not over," Rush marvelled.
The Canadian pilot, who crashed himself in the two-man event, blasted out of the gate Friday with what he called his "best run ever down this track."
"Maybe I was a little high in (Curve) 1, but that first run was sick. So I was pumped about that," Rush said.
Pierre Lueders, Canada's most decorated bobsleigh pilot, sits sixth, and his teammates expressed some frustration - along with their sense that it's the nature of the sport - after each of their first two runs were delayed slightly by teams crashing right before their starts. Over two heats, six teams crashed in Corner 13, which is nicknamed 50-50 for the threat it poses to topple sleds, but all the athletes appeared unhurt in walking away from their spills.
Justin Kripps of Summerland, B.C., one of the three Olympic rookies sliding with Lueders, said the crashes before their runs were "bad luck," but he thinks the spills don't say anything about the track.
"It says it's a good track, it's challenging. It's the Olympics, it's not supposed to be easy. That's the way competition should be," Kripps said. "If there was some easy track like Igls, Austria, or something like that, it would just be the guy with the best equipment wins. I'm happy with the track, I love it."
Converted CFL player Jesse Lumsden, sliding with Lueders, said with the Canada-2 team just over eight tenths of a second behind Holcomb, "the podium is definitely possible" if they push and drive to the best of their abilities on Saturday.
The USA-1 sled piloted by Holcomb, nicknamed the Night Train, charged out of the station first in the afternoon and sped to a track record with a run of 50.89 seconds. Holcomb, who led the World Cup four-man standings this season and won a silver medal at the World Cup race in Whistler last year, drove to yet another track record in the second run, with a time of 50.86 seconds.
He has a lead of four tenths of a second over Rush's team and 44 hundredths of a second over Lange, but Holcomb said his team won't ease off the throttle in their final two heats on Saturday (Feb. 27).
"We're going to go 100 per cent tomorrow and seal the deal," he said.
Asked about his feelings on seeing his team so high on the leader board, Rush said he was noticing the separation between his time and that of Holcomb's team.
"Those guys are just crushing us, but they're good. I shouldn't be surprised, they are the Night Train, they're good," Rush said ruefully.
Holcomb said the Night Train crew couldn't avoid seeing all the crashes, but he feels he has developed a "pretty good relationship" with 50-50, though "we've had words."
"You can't let (the crashes) get to you It's part of the sport. It just kind of tells me I've got to stay focused and prepare myself for (curves) 11-12-13 and make sure that I'm on my A game when I go through there," Holcomb said.
Germany's Karl Angerer drove his sled even faster than Rush in his first run, setting a new speed record for the track at 153.4 kilometres per hour.
