On Track, or Thin Ice? : Lack of Dedication Is Decried by Driver for Top U.S. Bobsled

By ROSS NEWHAN

Dec. 18, 1993 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

CALGARY — They were the hottest bobsled team on the World Cup circuit last winter, but now only Brian Shimer, the driver of USA I, is hot.

Hot as in angry, and frustrated over a disappointing World Cup campaign that has him questioning the dedication of his three sled mates. He fears his hopes of ending a 36-year Olympic medal drought by the United States might be slipping away.

“We have 50 days before the Games (in Lillehammer, Norway) and I don’t know if we can get it turned around that fast,” Shimer said as he prepared for Sunday’s start of the final World Cup event of the 1993-94 season.

“I just don’t think my team has the desire it had last year. I don’t think everyone is on the same (intensity) level I am. I don’t think they want it bad enough.”

A two-time Olympian at 31, Shimer won the World Cup four-man title with Karlos Kirby, Bryan Leturgez and Randy Jones last winter and teamed with Jones in the two-man to win the combined title as well. The four-man team then won a bronze in the World Championships to end a 24-year U.S. medal drought in that event.

But in six World Cup races on the 1993-94 circuit, Shimer’s best finish is a seventh.

“You’d think that after the success we had in our first year as a team, you wouldn’t have to worry about complacency and indifference, but we beat everyone so decisively last year that maybe they thought it would be easier the second time,” Shimer said.

“I’ve been to the Olympics twice. I could care less about just making the team. Why go just to take a drive down an ice chute? I want to medal and get up every day with that goal.

“We can do it, but some of these guys are more worried about their social life. I mean, they’ve got the rest of their lives to socialize, but one guy was two hours late for push practice the other morning after being out all night, and another said he was too sick to go to afternoon training even though he had been well enough to go out the night before. If this was the Super Bowl, they’d be gone.”

Joey Kilburn, the national coach, agreed with Shimer, but is in a delicate position.

“The other guys don’t have the same dedication as Brian,” he said. “It’s that simple. If you’re out all night or not giving 100%, you can’t perform. This is a team sport. Brian’s frustrated and I’m frustrated, but they have me by the throat and know it.

“It’s a touchy subject. In some ways I’m a paper tiger and admit it.

“We don’t have a pool of talent to draw from. I mean, I’d like to send one or two of them home, if only to get their attention, but I can’t break up the team if I don’t have replacements. What concerns me most is that if they’re not focused now, when will they be?”

Because bobsled races are often won in the first 50 meters, it’s a question of push for the Shimer team. Last year, he pointed out, he and Jones had the best start times in the world. Now, he said, they are 15th or so, and that raises questions about conditioning.

“We’re about 15/100ths off, but that’s a mile in bobsledding,” Shimer said. “If you’re behind that far at the top, you’re going to be three times that at the bottom.”

Jones, Kirby and Leturgez, as well as Shimer, are all former college football or track athletes recruited by the U.S. Bobsled and Skeleton Federation.

Jones, who went to Duke, said Friday he was in peak physical condition during the last World Cup campaign because he was coming off his final college track season. He said some of the form got away from him during the summer and he was unable to regain it during the 2 1/2 months the bobsled team recently spent in Europe, where they seldom had access to complete training facilities.

“I’m not where I should be from a physical standpoint, but it’s not a matter of complacency or desire,” he said.

“My desire is there. I know this is a once in a lifetime. I don’t want to get to Norway and blow the Olympics with an injury because I wasn’t in shape. Four (more) years would be a long time to wait.”

Shimer has invested eight years, as well as about $50,000 of his own and his parents’ money on sleds and equipment. His hometown, Naples, Fla., is a long way from any snow, but has its own bobsled club to assist him in fund-raising.

He obviously has a vested interest, a factor in his current frustration, as is the strained leg muscle he has coped with all winter. There is also the lingering question of whether to stay with a new sled, funded in large measure by NASCAR driver Geoff Bodine, that hasn’t performed to expectations.

Worst of all, though, is his wondering if his team is merely along for the ride.

“We’re talking about the Olympics here, and if you have to tell somebody they need to get serious, maybe they shouldn’t be part of it to start with,” he said.

Maybe they won’t be after the U.S. Olympic trials here next month, although new rules make it more difficult to change players than when the federation was running in Edwin Moses, Willie Gault and Herschel Walker before the 1992 Games, in which Shimer and Walker finished seventh in the two-man.

“I don’t know which is worse, that scenario or this,” Shimer said.