You’ll be competing in an event that didn’t exist when you made the national team. This is potentially a dumb question, because monobob means you’re alone in the sled. Are there any other differences between that race and the two-woman?
Oh no, not a dumb question at all. The differences are subtle, but they are there. The first thing anyone’s going to notice is the fact that, yeah, there’s only one person pushing, that same person is driving. We push from the back like a brakeman would, we don’t have a push-bar like we would on a two-woman sled. The monobobs are also a little smaller, by maybe 30 centimetres in terms of length, and they’re also just under 10 kilos lighter, which doesn’t sound like a lot, but when you’re pushing by yourself, it is. And the monobobs tend to be a little squirrely because there is no brakeman to help balance out and stabilize the back end, so you might see a lot of skids. Also, the sleds don’t carry as high in the corners, so they don’t get the same height and they don’t get the same speed.
You’ve been to the Olympics before, but competing on the stage will be new. What was your experience like in Pyeongchang, as an alternate?
It was… not fun. I tried to make the best of it. One of the things that helped me get through those Olympic Games was buddying up with the alternates from other teams, specifically GB and USA. The three of us became a rag-tag crew. We’d be able to vent, because the role of an alternate is such a hard role, and it’s hard to describe the emotions you go through unless you’ve been through it. I also had to be cognizant of the fact that I didn’t want to take away from my teammates who had been named to the Olympic team. I really felt trapped when I was around my teammates because I couldn’t emote the way I wanted to. When I was with my other spare friends, alternate friends [laughs], I was able to be myself, and those were the moments that I really cherish. Outside of that it was not fun.
Does this feel like your Olympic debut?
Yeah, 100 per cent. I know a lot of people within the sporting committee and outside of it are like, “You’re still an Olympian to me,” but it feels like lip service.
Did you consider leaving the sport after the last Olympics?
I was done before the Olympics were over. As soon as they named me an alternate I was like, “This is it. Once the Games are over, I will never see a bobsleigh again. I won’t watch it on TV.” I was just angry at the world. After we got through the Games, I talked to teammates and coaches and everyone was like, “It’s not time to throw in the towel just yet.” A couple of my coaches said, “You’re meant to be a bobsledder.” [Coach] Lyndon [Rush] in particular said, “Do you want to be saddled with, ‘what if?’ What if you give up now? What if you don’t give it another chance? What if next time you make it and you do well?”
So I sat at home and I really thought about it. I think Eeyore probably was happier than I was going into driving school [Editor’s note: Appiah went a couple weeks after she got home from Pyeongchang, having exclusively been a brakewoman to that point]. But it was a three-week camp and I had so much fun, and it allowed me to love the sport again — outside of the bureaucracy, the politics, loving the sport for what it is. I made a promise to myself that I would come back on my own terms, as a pilot, and I would dictate my own career. That’s what sold it for me.
How Cynthia Appiah rekindled her love of bobsleigh and made history
Source: Pinas Ko Mahal
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