Evidence that Tyg Long ran 100m in under 10.8s? Do you have even the slightest idea how unlikely that is?
InWyo wrote:
In high school in South Dakota (early 2000), there were two shot-putters who weighed well above 250 lbs, and could also run the 100 in under 10.8 seconds. I remember talking to both of them and saying they may not make the olympics in shot-put (one guy, Tyg Long was number 1 in the country for high schoolers at the time), but they would have a hell of a chance in bobsled.
Uh oh. Dawn and Kellie are going to start squawking about how unfair life is.
Forget about Lolo, she's there for press and photo ops. This is the young lady to watch...
This reminds me so much of Cool Runnings!!!!
I just bought the rights to Cool Runnings 2
I find it interesting how Rojo isn't bragging about how there is a former Cornell T&F person who is also on the bobsled team: Jamie Gruebel (driver for sled 2) was a multi-eventer/hurdler when she was at Cornell.
coaching101 wrote:
Some people question Lolo because of her push time trial, but she is one of the strongest women in the field so with more people in the sled she is probably a good choice. I am surprised they did not take Fountain though, she is fairly fast and strong.
I am no expert on bobsledding but they may have picked Lolo for the publicity. Not that she will not be a good team member but it also creates a buzz. I may even watch the fake olympics in the winter if she is in there.
I can see the publicity hound Lolo doing this late in her career. But Isn't Madison just gaining speed in her career? Why would she want to mess with this?
I assume that if they switched Lolo for, say, me, the Bobsled result would be negligibly different.
At least I can tell my grandchildren I had the ability to make an Olympic team...they just did not pick me.
I pushed a for a little while and bobsledding is a tough go. Here are a couple of things. First off, there is a max weight a sled can have and this includes the pushers. The start is the most important because it is the only time you can accelerate the sled. Once you are in,you cannot make the sled go any faster. It is just minimizing errors on the way down. The theory is if you can beat someone by .1 at the start you multiply that by about 3 and get a .3 sec advantage at the bottom. In a perfect world you want to have heavy pushers,pushing a light sled. So you can push a light sled faster, than you take the advantage of your heavy pushers mass on the way down. Some teams that have light pushers have to add weight to their sleds to make them heavier, however it is obviously a slower sled to push.
Most of the male teams throughout the world have quit large pushers and most of our world class sprinters are currently on the lighter side. I was about 235lbs and was a decathlete in college. Our current pushers on the male side are quite large and most of the guys had really good weight room strength. Lolo is light, but quite strong in the weight room and she might need to bulk up several more kilos. It is much more common for heavy males to be really fast than heavy females. That is why i think you see some lighter females in bobsled. Think how fast some linebacker types are, girls with larger builds are not as compareably fast.
Bobsledding is a rough go. First off, their are a lot of politics, Lolo won't have to go through this, but it is hard to move up because you are at the mercy of the drivers. They more or less choose their pushers. The top drivers get the top equipment and those guys are tough to beat. Bobsled is an incredibly expensive sport and the technology in the top sleds is not cheap.
In a typical day of pushing you spend many many hours and only get a few runs. It's not like doing a set of hurdles and walking back to the start line. You have to spend lots of time prepping your runners(blades)Once you make a run, you then have to get the bobsled on a truck/lift and get it back up the hill. I remember spending many cold days outside and it is hard to stay warm/loose. Doing max velocity sprints in freezing cold conditions is tough, especially in Europe where sometimes there was only a tiny area to warm up.
The frustrating part about bobsled is having a good push and the your pilot screws up or you are just beat because of equipment. By the way there is a lot of cheating with the equipment, kind of like Nascar. The best part about bobsled is that you get really close to your teammates and you kind of become a family. It was a lot of fun, but there is zero money in the game and it was time to move on in life.
There are six "push" women named to the team. None of this guarantees that Lolo will ever get in a World cup race, let alone the Winter Olympics.
ashely madison wrote:
Well, seeing Lolo's history at the Oly's - let's just hope she doesn't trip and fall on her face just trying to get into the sled.
how c'mon everyone was jumping for joy over Meb's 4th but Jones' 4th is ridiculed.
USA Bobsled's usual method of recruiting brakemen is to put a couple of flyers up in the ready room & locker room of the USATF championships and see if anyone bites. It's how they found 2002 Olympic gold medalist Vonetta Flowers- her husband saw their flyer at the 2000 Olympic track trials, and she figured she might as well give it a try after not making the team in the 100M. Patton probably got the same invite that Jones & Madison did but didn't think it was interesting enough to take the time off from track training.
Maybe the USA can win some medals in the traditional Winter Olympic events if we get some black athletes involved.
Imagine how horribly the US would do in the track part of the summer olympics without black athletes. We'd be battling Latvia for 44th place
JMartin wrote:
Maybe David Oliver.
Jesus. He had one off season, and you're sending him off to the glue factory?
Remind me: he was best or second in the world for how many years prior to 2012?
Lolo and Tianna have both been picked for World Cup bobsled spots, with Tianna pushing USA-1, Aja Evans pushing USA-2, and Lolo pushing USA-3.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2012/more/11/05/lolo-jones-bobsled.ap/index.html
Looks like the 2012-2013 World Cup bobsled season goes from November 2012 - February 2013:
Nov. 8-10 (Round 1) Lake Placid, USA
Nov. 16-18 (Round 2) Park City, USA
Nov. 23-25 (Round 3) Whistler, CAN
Dec. 7-9 (Round 4) Winterberg, GER
Dec. 14-16 (Round 5) La Plagne, FRA
Jan. 4-6 (Round 6) Altengerg, GER
Jan. 11-13 (Round 7) Königssee, GER
Jan. 18-20 (Round 8) Igls, AUT
Jan. 21-Feb. 3 (World Championships) St. Mortiz, SUI
Steve Redgrave competed in the bob for a while in the late 80s
http://www.morethanthegames.co.uk/rowing/298619-sir-steve-redgrave-relives-past-bobsleigh-glories
Anyone know what time Tianna and Lolo race tomorrow in the Bobssled World Cup, and if its televised or streamed anywhere?