CALGARY – Bobsleigh Canada Skeleton will send a full team of 18 bobsledders and three skeleton athletes to the Beijing Winter Olympics.
The team that will represent the country has made its mark at the World Cup and Worlds over the past four years, winning no less than 81 medals in all in these two competitions, including five at the World Championships.
After winning three Crystal Globes on the World Cup circuit this year, Canada has qualified 18 athletes to fill the maximum number of men’s and women’s sleds for a second straight Olympic Winter Games. Germany is the only other nation to have achieved this feat.
Canada will be represented in the women’s and men’s two-man, as well as the men’s four-man. It will also be one of the two countries to send women’s monobobs in competition.
The country has won nine Olympic medals in bobsleigh and four in skeleton. The bobsleigh events will be contested from February 13 to 20, while the skeleton events will be staged from February 10 to 12 at the Yanqing Sliding Center.
Here are Canada’s athletes and coaches:
female skeleton
Jane Channell (North Vancouver, BC)
Mirela Rahneva (Ottawa, ON)
male skeleton
Blake Enzie (Calgary, AB)
Coaches
Keith Loach (Calgary, AB)
Ivo Steinbergs (Latvia)
Women’s bobsleigh
Christine de Bruin (Stony Plain, AB)
Kristen Bujnowski (Mount Brydges, ON)
Cynthia Appiah (Etobicoke, ON)
Dawn Richardson Wilson (Edmonton, AB)
Melissa Lotholz (Barrhead, AB)
Sara Villani (Norval, ON)
Erica Voss (Toronto, ON), Substitute
Niamh Haughey (Scarborough, ON), Alternate
Men’s Bobsled
Justin Kripps (Summerland, BC)
Ben Coakwell (Moose Jaw, SK)
Ryan Sommer (White Rock, BC)
Cam Stones (Whitby, ON)
Christopher Spring (Priddis, AB)
Mike Evelyn (Ottawa, ON)
Samuel Giguere (Sherbrooke, QC)
Cody Sorensen (Ottawa, ON)
Taylor Austin (Lethbridge, AB)
Jay Dearborn (Yarker, ON)
Chris Patrician (Scarborough, ON)
Daniel Sunderland (Fort McMurray, AB)
Cyrus Gray (Duncan, BC), Substitute
Shaquille Murray-Lawrence (Scarborough, ON), Sub
Coaches
Todd Hays (Del Rio, USA), Head Coach
Jamie McCartney (Smithers, BC)
Elfje Willemsen (Vorselaar, Belgium)
Lyndon Rush (Humboldt, SK)
