I was probably the first person to come into the sport in Canada to say “I’m here for a reason – I want this sport to go Olympic and I want to be in position to go when it does.”  In my first World Cup I finished 33^rd  with 2 black eyes in Altenberg, germany but I did beat about 20 guys!  Somewhere along the way I installed myself as a permanent fixture in the top 10 and then the top 6 and I have stayed there ever since, even setting the track record in altenberg just a few years ago.  It has been such an honor to slide against the incredible men from around the world and Canada.  If it were not for the friends and the people I met, I likely would not have stayed in the sport so long.  Thank-you to all of you for allowing me to test myself against you for so long, I am honored by your dedication and passion for our sport.

 When I first began, Canadian Skeleton was in its infancy, but it did have the beginnings of a culture of excellence and winning thanks to Ryan Davenport.  He was my bench mark for so long and he helped me by being so good and giving me a level of excellence to chase.  I will never forget the first time I beat him in St. Morritz at the World championships. As I am sure there are many sliders here who remember the first time they beat me. 

 I know that I am a part of that continuing belief and expectation in Canada that we can and do win World cups, World Championships, and Olympic medals.  We do it because we have proven it can be done and we believe it not only can be done, but will be done.  It is now up to others to lead this team into its future and chase the best in the world.

 Even though I was injured before the games and did not win the gold or any medal it is important that Canada still took home the gold and I can take a small bit of solace in the fact that I had a part in that happening.  Jon, Mike, and I pushed each other hard over the years and this constant need to improve created the environment to make the medal happen for Canada.

 To my sponsors, I cannot thank-you enough.  Tiverton, AON,  Totalline Transport, Encana, and Athena Resources – thank-you for believing in me and giving me an opportunity to pursue my Gold medal dream.  You are leaders in your industries for a reason and Canada needs more people and companies like you to take up the reins of our nation’s athletes. 

 Maintaining the momentum Canada found at the Olympics in February takes effort, commitment, sacrifice, and support.  Take the stress out of an athlete’s life through secure finances and I believe the results we see will be beyond what we can imagine.  So much of the resources today are allocated to the technology, the travel, the medical, and so little of it is allocated to the athletes directly.  Who better to know what an athlete needs than the athlete themselves?  This is where people like Jane Roos at CanFund make such a huge difference in getting money into the hands of the athletes directly.   A special thank-you to Can Fund for the support thru the years.

 I was very fortunate to be a member of the B2Ten group and without them the past four years simply would not have been possible.  To the past, present, and future donors to B2Ten, thank-you for spearheading a revolution in Canadian sport.  Your efforts are so vital to the fabric of our nation.  Please keep believing and leading.

 The training and coaching teams that I built, and had help building around me, Andy Kupchek, Mike Steen, Damian Moroney, Scott Livingston, Amber Kunimoto, Mark Wood, Willi Schneider, and so many others from long ago thank-you for teaching me and helping me to all of my successes.

 To the people who kept my body together and healthy thank-you so much.,  A special thank-you to Dr, Greg Uchacz at the Chiropractic Sport and Therapy Clinic here in Calgary– his dedication to me as an athlete has spanned over 10 years and there is no way I could have had the results I did without his care and attention.

 Keeping my head screwed on tight was no small task and I have Richard Monet to thanks for so much of the learning I have made over my career.  As a sport psychologist, mentor, and friend you are unequalled.

 To BCS, thanks for putting up with me and providing an environment where excellence can prevail and medals are won. 

 Thank-you to the FIBT for growing our sport and giving us the venues and opportunities to test ourselves.

 No one has sacrificed more than my wife, Aly, and my two kids, Thomas and Kyle, and I know how hard this journey was on you.  Thank-you for helping me try.  I hope someday we understand why this has all happened and our lives can continue to grow and be rich together.

 In this journey thru sport, it became evident to Aly and I that we had a valuable story that needed to be shared.  Thank-you to Mary Murphy for helping us write our book “The business of Marriage and Medals”.  We hope to have an impact on the state of relationships from the bedroom to the boardroom throughout Canada, the USA, and maybe the world. 

 Through our book signings and interactions with some of Canada’s military personnel we learned that we have so much in common with the military life.  Extended periods of time away, lower economic realities, passionate pursuit of one’s ideals and goals, and representing our nation with pride are but a few of the things we share in common with the military personnel.  Aly and I have a place in our hearts for all the relationships out there who are struggling with the realities of life, marriage, and kids.  We wrote our book to bring forward a lot of the situations and conversations that we all know we are having, but no one will talk about.  We want to do our part to have a positive effect on relationships throughout North America and the maybe the world.” 

 One of my greatest fears has always been the effect my Skeleton life, and the subsequent travel, will have on my kids’ lives.  I was deeply honored to be granted an audience with Mr. Jack Nicklaus last summer and I spent two hours talking with him about the intricacies of family and competition.  I put this concern forward to Jack and he told me that as long as they always know I am there for them and will be there for them that it will all work out OK.  Knowing this, from such a successful man both in sport and family was perhaps the greatest gift of learning to come from those two hours.  Special thank-yous to Mr. Nicklaus and his amazing staff who in conjunction with Chris Dornan arranged this meeting.

 The question now is always “now what Jeff?” I am looking at short term and long term options with a few rising to the top and catching my attention.  Where ever I end I up, Skeleton has taught me that I now have a strong desire to build a world class team where my results are completely interdependent on the results of my team.  I am less and less interested in individual pursuits.  I have the skills to present, be in front of people, think creatively, do world class performance analysis, and I know how to win.  As well, Aly and I will be speaking to sports groups, families, corporations, and the military about relationships and how we made it through very trying times.

 Finally, although it is impossible to adequately thank everyone for the gifts they brought me, I would like to extend a thank-you to all of Canada for the support and love throughout the years.  Canada is the greatest country in the world with the greatest people.  Thanks for the honor of letting me help prove it to the world.

I guess when I put it this way, it seems like I did pretty well……..

I have been quiet up until now about the truth of my Olympic race.  I felt it was important to represent myself, my family, my supporters, and my Country with all that I had, with dignity, and with no excuses.  I believe I achieved that, but at the same time I have created misunderstanding of my results.  People ask me how I did and I tell them 9^th.  The common reaction is “aw, really, too bad.”  While, yes, I was disappointed with 9^th as you will read below it was about the best I could do and given my injury it is fairly amazing that I beat 18 of the best sliders in the world.  My goal was to win Gold and at worst another Olympic medal.  Obviously that did not happen.  I hope I represented Canada well.  I did it with all the pride in my heart and with every ounce of strength I had.  You cannot know how hard it was to stand at the start line for run 1 and it only got harder through runs 2, 3, and 4.  I hope this story shows a little of what it was like.  Thank-you to everyone who stood by me and helped me along the way – I could not have done it without any of you.

My Olympic Gold Medal dream essentially ended on January 23^rd, 2010 in Igles, Austria.  I did not know it at the time, but based on what has transpired over the past 7 months it is very clear I had no chance come the Olympic race.  In Igles on my first push at the final World Cup of the year I tore my abdominal muscles and damaged the lining of the bone between the muscles and my pelvis.  I knew right away something very bad had just happened and after riding the truck back to the top I immediately went to see our team therapist and doctor, Boris.  In a ‘funny’ twist of fate, this is exactly the same situation I faced one year earlier at the same track in the same race.  Except last time it was a torn calf muscle and I could manage to work through the pain.  This time it was much much worse.  I went to see Boris and he gave me the same advice as he did the previous year, “Jeff, you cannot make it any worse, so try to ignore the pain and push your best.”  The previous year, with a torn calf, I actually managed a personal best push with the adrenalin of the situation and ended in 4^th place.  This year the adrenalin could not carry me through as the pain was too great and I ended in 11^th spot.

After the race Boris evaluated me further and told me that with this type of injury it would need 4-6 months of zero activity to heal completely.  Well, that was not an option – I had to race at the Olympics in 3 weeks!  Mentally I pushed his prognosis aside and began to do the rehab work I assumed was going to have me ready to go for the Olympic race.  I mean I have had some bad injuries before and 3-4 weeks later with great medical care and rehab and I was back to 95%.  Not this time it would seem.

We left the next day for home and as soon as I arrived in Calgary I went to see ‘the magic man’, Dr. Greg Uchacz.  Greg has been working with me for the past 10 years and never before has he not been able to get me ready to go when I needed to get there.  I assumed this time would be no different – it couldn’t be, this is the race I had trained the past 4 years for and it was the Olympics, at home, potentially the last race of my career, and maybe the most important!  From day 1 I could tell in Greg’s body language that this time things might be different.  Again, mentally I tried my best to push this aside and just focus on what I needed to do so I would be ready – maybe not healed, but ready enough.  Greg did his A.R.T. (active release therapy) on me daily and I saw the naturopath, Dr. Michael Hoffman, for prolotherapy injections to try and speed the healing process.  My progress was slow, but my stomach did seem to be making a bit of headway.

After a week at home in Calgary we headed out to Whistler for our pre-Olympic training camp.  At this point it was impossible for me to even walk without a lot of pain and walking up stairs was excruciating.  How was I going to push my sled in the training runs I needed?  Answer: I didn’t.  I needed the runs to get used to the cut of the ice on the track, but knew that I could not risk any new damage to the bone and muscles.  So, thanks to the development Skeleton sliders, Charles and John, and my coach, Mike Steen I was pushed off the top for the entire week of training.  It was quite a spectacle (and I am sure some interesting comments were thrown about) as I lay on my sled and stuck my butt up into the air as far as I could so they could place a broom (bristle end!) against my #@s and push me as fast as they could without killing themselves as we accelerated over the crest and into the track.  This allowed me to drive the track while minimizing the impact on my abs.  It was effective in getting me onto the track, but with my reduced start velocity I can look back now and see how it hindered me in learning the first 4 curves which are critical at the Whistler track. 

So that was a sort of solution to the track time issue, but this still left me with the problem of figuring out how to push my sled with minimal discomfort.  I was spending an hour a day getting therapy to try and repair the damage and another two hours a day trying to work out a solution to pushing my sled with modified dry land sessions.  My trainers, Mike Steen and Damian Moroney, along with Greg Uchacz and I were down below our condos in the parking garage trying everything we could think of.  I built a wooden push sled that allowed me to practice along the wall of the garage.  We had every imaginable product down there – compression shorts, back belts, S.I. belts, and tape – lots of tape.  We tried it all in every combination you can imagine in an effort to reduce the amount of stabilization my abs would have to perform.  This in turn would hopefully reduce the pain caused by me pushing the sled.  Nothing worked very well, but tape seemed to hold the most promise.

Finally official training arrived and it was then illegal for me to be pushed off the top by others.  So, I had to do my best to push myself without injuring myself further.  It hurt.  A lot.  But I had no choice so away I went for 3 days, two runs a day.  On day three of official training, the final day, we tried the final option – local anaesthetic.  Much like at the dentist office, the theory is to numb the area to reduce or eliminate the pain.  The ‘allowable safe limit’ for this type of medication (which is fully within the WADA doping rules) is 10cc’s so that is where we started on day 3 of training.  It did not eliminate the pain, but I did have a small bit of hope however as the pain was within what I considered a manageable range.  So, prior to tomorrow’s race I would get 14cc’s of anaesthetic and then get fully taped from groin to belly button.

I got a difficult 7 ½ hours of sleep and awoke in the morning with an average amount of pain.  As I could not sit up out of bed, I rolled onto the floor and pushed myself to standing.  Off to breakfast and into the final prep phases for my sled.  The race was an evening race and in these cases I always leave myself a few tasks to do to fill my day so I can avoid the worry, stress, and mental anxiety that come with waiting around.  We left for the track at around 2pm because the route to the track was a bit long with having to take 2 separate buses and transport our sleds with us.  My normal routine is to arrive at the track about an hour and a half before the race, finalize my sled work an hour before the race begins, and then start my warm up an hour before my actual run.  As I was 10th off this gave me about 15 minutes to chill and soak in the moment.  As I could hardly walk it was obviously not going to be a ‘normal’ warm up for me so I relied heavily on Damian to help me prepare as best we could.  Mainly I focused on preparing the muscles by getting them warm, some active stretching, and agility exercises to build quickness and co-ordination.  About 20 minutes before my run I went into the tent to see the doctors.  Greg Uchacz worked his usual magic and made sure my muscles were prepped through a pre-race A.R.T. routine we had developed over the past 10 years and then came the needles.  Today it was 14 cc’s of freezing and tape from mid-quad to belly button (yeah, try taking that tape off….. they actually used an additional adhesive to make sure the tape did not loosen through my perspiration).  I was as ready as I would ever be and nervous because this would be my first full push in a month.

I got to the start line with the mental attitude that I had to go for it and if it held fantastic, but if it didn’t then it is what it is.  The buzzer went off and my 30 second clock began.  My coach, Willy held my sled in the start groove until I bent over to grab it, at 22 seconds I pushed off as hard as I could took 3 steps and my stomach blew apart.  It was like someone stabbed me in the stomach with a dagger and tore me open.  I do not know how I took the next 11 steps and the most painful part came when I loaded onto my sled.  The last step is supposed to be that last bit of acceleration and it is both a forward and sideways motion.  These combined motions torque my body with the hinge being my pelvis and the control being my abdominals.  Exactly where I was injured.  Ok, now I am lying on my sled accelerating towards corner one with the pain radiating out into my chest and down the inside of my legs and I have to mentally regroup to safely negotiate the next 16 corners.  Added to this challenge is the fact that it is the right side of my abs where 70% of the pain is originating (I don’t know why because as we discovered later one of the main tears was on the left of centre – some weird body / nerve connection thing), and 4 of the 5 corners where the most steering pressure is required all go Right (4, 7, 11, 16).  Every time I steer right I activate the pain and another dagger is added to the group.  With all the mental distractions and physical pain my first run was not what I wanted and not even close to what I needed or was capable of.  I am ashamed to say I could just not do it.

In run 1 I pushed 4.81s which was only .02s off my personal best in Whistler, but a full .11s off what I had trained so hard to accomplish and what I know I was capable of.  Aside from the inadequate driving I was doing, this loss of time translates into a loss of about .3s in total time at the bottom of the track.  By the time my second run came around I could barely breath, stand, or walk.  The Doc’s did their best to help, but it was no good.  I got to the line and pushed as hard as I could and only managed 4.86s – another .48s total time lost.  I ended the day in 10^th and mentally even though I was doing my very best to stay positive about the possibilities tomorrow could hold, in the back of my mind I knew I was done.  My Olympic Gold Medal dream was over forever.

Just because my personal dream was dead does not mean I did not have some huge responsibilities to uphold.  There were so many people that sacrificed so much to get me to this race that I could not quit.  Believe me the thought crossed my mind more than once as I lay curled in bed unable to roll over, straighten out, or get up to go to the bathroom.

Day 2 of the race began and I went through the exact same routine except this time we used 17 cc’s of the local anaesthetic.  About ½ a cc was injected into about 24 spots for run 3 so we could save a bit for the real trouble spots and add more on run 4.  My third run came up and I stood at the start, pushed as hard as I could and managed a 4.82s.  Another .36s gone.  My ranking did not change and I remained in 10^th spot.  Every step hurt, the damage got worse and worse, and every corner hurt to steer.

Mentally I was devastated.  Any shred of hope that survived the night was now gone.  I had zero chance of moving up into the top 6 let alone the top 3 so I had a choice – quit (and I don’t think anyone who knew the real story would have blamed me) or do it anyway.  I never quit.  I decided somewhere between run 3 and 4 that I was going to have the best run of my life and if my ab muscles tore themselves off the bone then so be it.  They may have partly done that and I pushed 4.80s.  By the end of run 4 I had had one of the best runs of my life and placed third on that run.  I gained one spot and finished 9^th at my final Olympic games.

As it turns out Boris was correct – it did take a full 6 months for my stomach to heal.  Only a month ago around mid-September could I run up the stairs with no pain and play ultimate Frisbee without residual pain the next day.  Although I would call myself ‘healed’ I still experience some aches after exercise and I am currently in the process of teaching my body how to activate the damaged muscles and tissues.  Having my abs not working for so long has caused residual back issues which are just now clearing up as I re-activate my abdominals.  I hope in a few weeks to be back to ‘normal’ again, if that was ever me in the first place……

It was not the ending I envisioned to be sure, but I hope one day I will be able to look back and truly appreciate what I have accomplished.  Recently I summarized my career results and they stand like this:

15 Years on Canadian National Team

74 World Cup appearances

41 top 6 results

7 – 4^th place finishes

22 World Cup Medals (10G, 6S, 6B)

10 World Championship Appearances

8 top 8 World Championship results

2x World Champion

1x World Champion Silver

2x World Cup Over-all Champion

10 years in Top 10 Over-all

7 years in Top 4 Over-all

3x Olympian

2006 Olympic Silver Medallist

1 Broken Foot, 2 Broken Ribs (I raced both times anyway), 4 Black eyes, 1 unconfirmed concussion, and 1 million scrapes / burns / bruises

Still married with 2 amazing kids.

 Again, thank-you to everyone who supported me and believed in me along the way, it has been an honour to represent Canada for the past 15 years.  Most of all thank-you to my family: Aly, Thomas, and Kyle.  I know the burden of my quest rested squarely on your shoulders.  I cannot thank-you enough or apologize enough.  Someday perhaps we will understand the ‘why’ of it all. 

I hope I did you all proud.

Jeff and the ‘Raging Beaver’

World Cup Races 1-3, 2009-10

After a long three weeks in Whistler training and racing in team selections followed by a week in Calgary doing the same, it was finally time for the World Cup season to begin.  The first race was in Park City and for me it was a great place to begin the season.  Park City is one of my favourite tracks as I really slide well there and I love how fast it all happens there.  The track is only 50 seconds long – the shortest on tour – and there are no straight-a-ways longer than 15m until the exit of corner 14 and there are only 15 corners!  The curves come fast and furious but there is still a great flow to the track.  Last year I finished both the World Cups in Park City in sixth place and I was hoping to improve a bit this year.  As it turns out 6^th seems to be my lot in Park City!  I was sitting 9^th after the first run and this was the cause of a lot of stress – I only needed one more Olympic qualifier and had to stay in the top 10 to achieve this requirement.  So, I had to fight the fear and handle the stress and get it done.  My second run was very good, but more importantly my second push was even better than my first.  The track was slowing so I needed to push better to get my result and I did.  With the track being so short ties are commonplace and this year, like last year for me, was no exception – I tied for 6^th again.  It was a huge relief to get my final Olympic qualifier out of the way so early in the season and now I could focus on really honing my equipment, start, and sliding feel without the added strain of ‘chasing a result’.

From Park City we moved across the USA and began preparation for the next World Cup in Lake Placid, NY.  Lake Placid has not been my best track which is somewhat surprising as it is known to be a bit more o a ‘drivers track’ and this is usually where I excel.  The added bonus for this week was that Aly and the kids came out for the last half of the week.  Lake Placid is not their favourite place to visit as the shoulder season weather does not offer much for the kids to do.  They managed to get by swimming in the hotel pool and with a visit to the local bowling alley.  Back on the track I was having my usual ups and downs but made a bit of headway in learning both the track and my new sled.  My Schneider sled has a different turning point than my Davenport sled so it is a huge learning curve at the moment adjusting my patterns after 14 years on the Davenport.  Race day came I was flat as a pancake….  My push was awful and my driving only average at best.  Put those two elements together in the most competitive field I have ever slid in and I ended up in 13^th place.  My worst finish in 7 or eight years.  With my mantra of the year being to make sure I fully enjoy each and every moment of this privileged life I am leading, I gave thanks for the learning of the week, but have to honestly say I will not miss Lake Placid!

The Placid race was on Friday and that gave the family and me the opportunity to drive up to Montreal for the weekend.  We left mid-morning Saturday and arrived at the Montreal science Centre at around 3:30.  We really enjoyed the hour and a half we had there and have proven (with the help of an infra-red camera) that Aly’s nose is indeed always cold!  We were very grateful to stay at the Parson’s house in the beautiful neighbourhood of Westmount.  They are part of my support group B2Ten and we cannot thank them enough for having us stay over for the two nights.  Sunday we were off to the Bio-dome and then some toy shopping.  All in all a great family day.  I dropped Aly and the kids off at the airport Monday morning and then went back into Montreal to see one of my trainers and get some therapy.  At 5pm that night I then flew to Munich.

We spent the first 2 days in Munich as we needed to visit the Adidas factory to pick up our team gear and there is also a fantastic indoor water park and spa right near the airport.  We discovered last year that a great way to get over or manage jet lag is to go water sliding!  Go figure – a bunch of Skeleton sliders having a blast on a huge water park?   Seems out of character, but we made the most of it.  The morning of the third day in Germany we began our 10 hour drive to the Torino track.  It was long but uneventful – if I could just convince my team mates to not spend 25 minutes at the gas station stops….

We arrived at the Torino track 4 days before the official training began so this allowed us to get in some extra runs.  I had forgotten how much I liked this track as last season we had our race cancelled due to the 2m of snow that fell in 48 hours last December.  The track has a really nice flow to it once you find it, but the finding is a bit difficult.  I was back into the flow after the first couple of days and headed into the official training period with a solid game plan.  Race day came and after the first run it was like déjà-vu all over again….  I pushed exactly the same as at the Olympics in 2006 and I was behind the leader, my team mate Jon, by almost exactly the same amount as at the games!  I guess this was my opportunity to have a ‘do-over’ – except without the crash in curve 18 this time…..  My first run had been stellar and I was hoping for a solid follow-up performance.  I accomplished it all the way to curve 11 and then got 1” too close to the left wall.  It kicked me over too fast and I just touched the right wall right before curve 14.  Now I had to work very hard to save the run (late into 14 = land on back if not handled properly….), I did a good job of it and the rest of the run went smoothly.  Unfortunately, due to my late entry into 14 all my speed had disappeared and in the place where I usually make up time at the bottom of the track I now had the same splits as everyone else.   This meant that I ended up losing one spot and in 4^th – .04s out of second.  Regardless of my corner 14 problem, the best I could have done was 2^nd as Jon pushed great and drove great, he deserved the win to be sure.  Canadian men had one of the best days in our history placing 1,3,4.  Almost as good as the games!

As I type this I am half way between Torino and Winterberg (nicknamed ‘Rainy-berg’) and the beginning of the next world cup week awaits!

The weather finally turned nice mid-July and we enjoyed a solid month and a half of very nice temperatures.  My garden never did recover, but I did get a good crop of potatoes and onions.

My summer training was all in all very good with many new sport specific exercises as the main focus.  Of course there was the pre-requisite weight room lifting and running track sprints, but it was the new movement patterning which kept my mind and body engaged.  Although I must admit that when September rolled around I was sick and tired of the tedium and sameness of it all.  Every week the same thing.  Over and over and over.  Lyndon Rush and I were commiserating a bit in Whistler and he echoed my thoughts of “I think if I touch another weight I’m gonna puke”.  Of course it all is necessary and I will do what it takes, but after 5 -6 months of the routine it got a little old.  All things considered I have made some huge steps with my push and although it is not translating to consistently faster push times yet, I feel better and look better pushing than ever before.  As I warm up for my runs I am noticing a big difference in how my body moves in a much more sport specific way.  I know it will translate to the ice soon – I just need to keep working hard and be patient.

Whistler training was very successful and from day one it felt as if I had not gotten off my sled.  I had some very specific goals in mind regarding my understanding of the track and some of the corners and I would say I found answers to all but one corner.  That will have to wait until January now, but after 2 solid runs, one great run, and one awful run I ended the team selection race in first.  This race in Whistler counted for 50% of our team selection process so by finishing first I had put myself in a fantastic position to make the World Cup Team.

The second phase of our team selections has just concluded in Calgary where we had 2 separate races Saturday and Sunday where I finished 4^th and 2^nd respectively.  My push deserted me this weekend, but I now have the sore throat to answer the ‘why?’ of that problem.  So, phase 1 of three is now complete: I have made the World Cup Team.  Phase 2 is qualifying and being selected to the Olympic team and then phase 3 is Olympic Gold!

This week is a rest week and it is sorely needed. The time in Whistler combined with the stress of the team selections has taken a toll on my energy.  I am well aware of what I need to do this week to be ready to fire on all cylinders come the first world cup of the season – just 2 ½ weeks from now!  Life moves fast and hopefully my sled and I will move even faster!