After a stellar first year in women’s bobsleigh, Cochrane native and Team Alberta member Janine McCue is looking to make an even bigger splash this time around.
In 2014, she and Calgary-native teammate Christine de Bruin finished in the top-10 in International Bobsleigh & Skeleton Federation (IBSF) North America’s Cup events.
More recently, the Team Alberta two-women development sled team finished seventh on day one at the NAC 2 Women Bob Park City race with times of 51.84 (run one) and 52.01 (run two). Day two proved to be more successful, as they recorded times of 51.26 (run one) and 51.45 (run two) placing fifth.
Things are looking on the up, as the duo have entered into another hard season of blood and sweat, with their first practice runs of the season happening on Oct. 23 at Canada Olympic Park (COP).
This marks McCue’s second year (as a brakeman) in the sport, and de Bruin’s fourth (first as a pilot). What do the pair want to improve on from last season?
“We just need to improve our results,” de Bruin said. “Our start today was the fastest we’ve done so far, which was two-tenths of a second better than before.
“(The start) is definitely something that we’ve been working on, and it’s gotten a lot better than it was.”
As far as training outside of the track is there much that they can do to prepare for success?
“There really isn’t much,” McCue concluded. “You’ve only got 600-900 runs in your entire career, so that’s around 10,000 hours of work.”
“We do a lot of visualization,” de Bruin said.
The runs at COP marked the first selection race of the season for choosing teams.
“We’re preparing to go to Whistler on Sunday for the second selection,” McCue said. “That’s when teams are made.”
In terms of the first practice how did the two runs go?
“The first one was a lot better,” de Bruin said. “The second one was a little bumpy.”
Was that because of track conditions?
“No, it’s just because I didn’t drive as well,” de Bruin concluded. “I have to say it.”
“It’s true,” McCue laughed.
