BARRHEAD- Melissa Lotholz does not believe in leaving things to chance.
And that is why the 28-year-old Barrhead native has ordered a set of new runners for any monobob or two-woman sled she pilots in the upcoming bobsleigh season.
However, to do so, she will need some help from the community, which is why she is holding a Canada Day fundraiser at West of the 5th Distillery with help from Stephani Motors and Fountain Tire, who are sponsoring the event.
Lotholz will be at the restaurant all day as a featured guest hostess and will showcase her various medals and Olympic memorabilia. In addition to raising the estimated $8,000 for the runners, she hopes to raise another $4,500 to off set the costs of an extended training session at the famed Calgary's Canada Olympic Park and its ice-house.
"It is an important year. It is an Olympic season." Lotholz said. "I want to do everything I can to qualify for the [Beijing Olympic Games] and bring home a medal for Canada. And being guaranteed access to top of the line equipment is huge."
The national team does supply equipment, but much of it is antiquated, in disrepair, or in the case of runners worn down to the point that they no longer meet competition requirements.
She also noted that for the equipment they do have, there is a pecking order to its availability and while Lotholz is a veteran on the team and has 17 World Cup medals on her resume, including two silver World Championship medals, she is a relative newcomer as a pilot.
Lotholz joined Canada's Bobsleigh program in the fall of 2014 as a brakeman, mostly teaming with Kailie Humphries. But after the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics, where she teamed up with fellow Albertan, Christine De Bruin, placing seventh, she decided to jump to the front seat and try her hand at driving.
Since moving to the front seat, Lotholz has shown promise. Last year, in her second albeit COVID season, she teamed up with various partners and Lotholz finished in the Top Five in the two-person competition on multiple occasions. She also podiumed on multiple times in the one person monobob, including Canada's first Monobob World Series medal, a bronze in Igls, Austria.
"It's an exciting time for women's bobsleigh," Lotholz said. "For the first time at an Olympics, women will have two events, like the men."
In mens' bobsleigh at the World Cup and the Olympics, men compete in both the two and four men races.
Lotholz noted one of the things that helped her make the progress that she did last season is that she bought a pair of runners last year.
Having a second pair of runners will also help her to have more downtime to recuperate.
"What ends up happening is that you train on one set of runners all week long, race on them, then you have to spend another three hours to prepare them once again to prepare to race the next morning," Lotholz said.
She added that bobsledders use different runners for different ice conditions, equating it how drivers switch their vehicle's tires for the seasons.
"Air and ice temperature, humidity and other conditions that affect the quality and hardness of the ice and therefore which runners might be best on a given day. In general, the wider the runner, the faster it can be as it has more surface area to disperse the weight/pressure and, therefore, less friction. Don't forget we are pulling six Gs around some of those corners," Lotholz said.
Of course, she said, it is a fine line that competitors have to walk when deciding on the set-up of their blades.
"Less friction also equals less control, so fatter isn't always better as you will lose way more time fishtailing down the track. You also have a higher chance of crashing," Lotholz said. "It is a fine art, choosing a runner for race day."
The runners, which can be used for both monobobs and two-person sleds, will most likely last her for the remainder of her bobsled career.
The national team is also asking athletes to come to Calgary earlier than usual in preparation for the Olympic season, which means bobsledders will be on the hook for additional living expenses.
Lotholz plans to leave for the start of the July 5 training camp shortly after Canada Day.
In a non-Olympic season, she would leave for Calgary in early September for push-start training.
"They are opening the ice house a lot earlier this year, which is great, but it does mean I will have three months of extra expenses," she said.
After the extended training camp in Calgary, the team will move to Whistler, B.C. and Canada's only bobsleigh track.
Lotholz said that sometime after the testing camp in Calgary and going to Whistler, she plans to take her second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.
"It is kind of a song and dance each athlete will be doing," she said. "Because of the potential negative side effects that could potentially impact your training, you don't want to do it when it could place you at a disadvantage ... but at the same time, you want to make sure it is at a maximum effectiveness by the time you have to travel."
After Whistler, which will happen in early to mid-September, depending on when the track puts its ice in, Canada's sliding sports will make their way to Bejing.
"There is always a chunk of time where teams get a chance to get familiar with the track," Lotholz said. "For the Olympics, it is something like 50 runs and usually that is at the end of the third year in the Olympic cycle, which would have been this past March, but because of COVID, they moved it. So for October, we will be based in Bejing, get to stay in the Olympic village and check out some of the other facilities."
After the Olympic testing event, they will go right into the World Cup season, which due to the pandemic, once again will take place entirely in Europe.
"It puts us a bit of a disadvantage because we know the North American tracks better," she said.
It will also mean the Canadian team will be celebrating Christmas in Lativa.
"Which will be a bit of a unique experience," she said. Less than a month after the holiday break, the Candian Bobsleigh Team is expected to name who is going to the Olympics.
Going into the season, Lotholz feels well prepared. After taking a short break in the spring, she resumed training full-time in March.
The pandemic, for the second straight offseason, has limited Lotholz’s training sessions to something resembling a Rocky IV training montage than that of an athlete preparing for her second Olympics. Sprint sessions include running up hills on her family's farm, often with weights such as tires tied behind her and quad pushes. Weightlifting sessions include activities such as tire flipping or squat lifts using a homemade weight set.
"It has been going really well ... I've added a few more weights so it looks more like a traditional weight set," she said.
Barry Kerton, TownandCountryToday.com
