It starts somewhere.
Cochrane’s Janine McCue went for it this summer, answering the recruiting call for Canadian women’s bobsleigh competitors.
Fast-forward (at 120+ km/h) to Nov. 22 at Canada Olympic Park (COP) in Calgary, and the Bow Valley High School Class of 2004 grad is finishing top-10 in International Bobsleigh & Skeleton Federation (IBSF) North America’s Cup events. Braking for driver Christine de Bruin in a Team Alberta two-woman development team sled, the 28-year-old McCue is in her third month of competitive bobsleigh.
“Just starting,” says McCue, who’s competitive hockey background gave he a leg up on the competition at Canadian bobsleigh development team summer tryouts. “It was just kind of completely on a whim. I always had an interest in the sport and after the Olympics I just thought I’d go for it. Went out to all the tryouts and did fairly well. Now I’m full-on in it kind of thing.”
McCue and de Bruin qualified for the Alberta development sled and North America’s Cup by finishing fourth at the Bobsleigh Canada Skeleton national championships Nov. 1 in Calgary.
The de Bruin/McCue sled was one of four Canadian, two-woman sleds racing North America’s Cup (NAC) races Nov. 21-22 at COP. Each race consisted of two runs, with combined two-run times counting as each day’s finish time. Barrelling down their home track in a primer-black, two-man sled with Foothills Bobsleigh Club lettering on each side (with some letters missing), McCue and de Bruin put in four clean runs on a weekend in which several sleds crossed the finish line tipped over.
This is a high-risk, high-speed endeavour not for the timid. The duo’s 9th- and 10th-place finishes in Calgary bettered their 12th-place finishes at Park City, Utah, a week earlier.
“Just part of the Alberta team right now,” McCue continues. “We’re racing on behalf of Canada right now. We’re part of Team Alberta. We just do these couple of races and then hopefully in the new year we’ll go back to Park City for the NAC’s as well and the rest of the year is just going to be development. Getting better, learning the sport and just improving from there.”
She’ll spend the bulk of her training time at Canada Olympic Park’s sliding centre. She cannot overstate the key role Calgary’s 1988 Winter Olympic Games legacy facility, its artificially-refrigerated sliding track and Ice House play in her two-man bobsleigh development.
“All the training will be here,” McCue says, standing on the bobsleigh finish dock at COP. “It’s a great facility still. It’s one of the only ones actually still used after all these years. And it’s at my doorstep.”
From her doorstep, McCue is looking up at her ultimate goal – just three months into her bobsleigh journey.
“2018, for sure,” she states of the Olympic Winter Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
de Bruin/McCue results
IBSF North America’s Cup races 3-4
Nov. 21-22 at Canada Olympic Park, Calgary
Race 3, 9th (two-run combined time of one minute, 55.96 seconds)
Race 4, 10th (one minute, 57.67 seconds)
