In Their Words: Jeff Pain
Feb 21, 2008
Skeleton athlete Jeff Pain was born in Anchorage, Alaska. From Calgary, Pain began competing in 1995, before skeleton became an official Olympic sport. He is a pioneer of the sport and the most decorated Canadian skeleton athlete of his time.
During his career, Pain has had nearly 20 World Cup podium finishes and has won two World Championships. He represented Canada at the Torino 2006 Olympic Winter Games where he won a silver medal.
Skeleton Then and Now by Jeff Pain
Before the Salt Lake City 2002 Olympic Winter Games, skeleton was a sport done by those who loved the sport enough to fork over their own money to make it happen.
It also attracted people with a need for speed and an enthusiasm for testing themselves against the world. That hasn’t changed, but some traditions have shifted since skeleton became an Olympic sport.
Skeleton in the pre-Olympic era
Back in the day before skeleton joined the Olympic family in 2002, the World Cup circuit ran every year with a series of four to six races, typically spread throughout Europe, and with an occasional race in North America.
My typical World Cup race tour was often spent in the company of two other competitive sliders from other countries. We all packed our sleds and duffle bags into a Volkswagen Golf and drove anywhere from four to 12 hours from one race to the next. Upon arriving in the next town, we would seek out the cheapest accommodations possible and find the local grocery store.
On my first trip to Igles, Austria, the British team let us in on their secret super cheap pension hotel. It was 25 Deutschmarks (about $20 CDN) a night with breakfast and dinner included. The rooms held up to 10 beds which were made up of old sofa cushions on old bed frames. Breakfast was standard European fare of crusty buns, cold cuts, cheese, yogurt, jam and, sometimes, hard boiled eggs. Lunch was found in the grocery store and was often similar to breakfast. Dinner was almost always deep fried with a side of french fries or pasta.
Races were held on Saturdays so we had two training runs per day from Wednesday to Friday. When we would arrive at the track, the first order of business was to do an initial track walk — walking in the track to look at the ice profiles and attempt to overhear what the other nations were saying about the drive line — and then we would prepare for our runs.
Between our first and second runs, we would watch other sliders on the track to try and figure out the problem areas. Then after training we would go into the track café to examine the time sheet and work out the splits, which is the time breakdown in each of the five timing sections of the track. We were given the running time data so would do the math and figure out the section times. This was sometimes done while enjoying a beer, which was often cheaper than bottled water or soft drinks.
Race day would find us at the track a minimum of one hour before the race to get our sleds into the “Parc Ferme” (the European way of saying sliding venue) and prepare ourselves to race. We did a 15 to 20 minute warm-up and then got dressed to race. Race days typically ran four to five hours and had 50 male and 30 female competitors. Everyone got two runs and the lowest combined total was the winner. The Germans and the Austrians were the power houses at the time and typically won all the medals, save for the few gathered by Canada’s ace of the day, Ryan Davenport.
Race night was always very social. The only people in the world who seemed to care about the results were either at the party or our families at home — but that didn’t damper our celebrations. After the race, a group of us would gather again in the café to swap race stories and plan out the evening’s events where glasses were raised in good cheer and a lot of laughter could be heard throughout the night. If it was the World Championship race, then we might get a small results mention in the sports pages of the Calgary Herald (where Davenport lived). With little media coverage, sponsorship was unheard of for the skeleton athletes.
In the Games
Upon skeleton’s formal inclusion into the Winter Olympics in 2002, skeleton as a sport began to change substantially. Firstly, the national team was no longer limited to the people who could afford to go. A formal national team tryout program had to be created along with the Olympic qualification requirements. Suddenly, the World Cup circuit had more meaning than just a bunch of races we did to see how fast we could go and bragging rights for the person who could get the most points by the end of the year.
Each race was now a possible Olympic qualifying result — a top six place in a World Cup race equaled an Olympic qualifier and we needed to get four over the two seasons prior to the Games.
With skeleton’s inclusion in the Olympic Games, the sport gained recognition by Sport Canada as an official sport, and thus, received some funding from them. Canadian skeleton athletes became eligible to receive carding money and the sport federation was able to start paying for travel expenses. Suddenly we found ourselves staying at reasonable hotels and sleeping in reasonable beds with real mattresses! We were even able to have “full pension” meal plans which meant three meals a day and no more grocery store lunches!
Unfortunately, one of the resulting effects on the sport was a loss of country to country camaraderie. Each nation separately mobilized their resources, hired coaches, bought video cameras and built their own teams. This meant that I no longer had as much time or necessity to be with the other sliders from other nations. I feel very fortunate to have slid in a time when I was able to so easily create the friendships I have with athletes from all over the globe. Race day social events are generally limited to one after the last race of the season and again after the World Championship weekend.
Modern race day
Breakfast still consists of the same crusty buns, meat, cheese and yogurt, but a typical day is now a lot more organized and serious. We arrive at the venue an hour and a half early to do our daily track walk with the coach and make sure we are well warmed up for the sliding session, followed by two training runs. The team manager organizes himself and the therapist into the required roles for our time at the track where their duties include holding a video camera or providing physical care for the athletes. These sessions last several hours and then we go back to the hotel for lunch, which is followed by a physical training session and then a video session where the coach helps us review and analyze our sliding lines from the day. Dinner follows the video session and the evening is filled with equipment maintenance and sometimes physical therapy from the team doctor.
This routine lasts for three days prior to the race and is largely unchanged on race day. Races now only last a maximum of three hours because the International Federation — Fédération Internationale de Bobsleigh et de Tobogganing (FIBT) — has restricted the number of competitors from each country competing on the World Cup circuit and has added two other lower circuits for developing sliders. Also, only the top 20 sliders after the first run will get a second run because of a time restriction due in part by television broadcasts of the race.
Coverage to come
With the exception of the Winter Olympic Games seasons, skeleton results don’t get in-depth coverage, but many more newspapers now carry some results and give us a write up or two throughout the season.
While finding a personal sponsor can be like finding a needle in a haystack, the small exposure we do receive, along with being a member of the Olympic family, has helped.
Skeleton has made great progress since becoming an Olympic sport, but there is much we can do — with the support of athletes, families, friends, and fans — to further advance skeleton for future generations.
In Their Words Series
In Their Words is a celebration of the two-year countdown to the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games. This 17-part series is comprised of personal stories written by Olympians and leaders with a passion for the Games. Visit vancouver2010.com every day from February 12 to 28 for a fresh story of inspiration, triumph and hope.
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