Today and Saturday, America's male bobsledders will try to break a 46-year jinx, and a brawny young Utahn will join in the effort.
Bill Schuffenhauer, Ogden, will try to end a sad record for U.S. men's bobsledding: 46 years without a medal. It is infamous as the bobsled-medal "drought."
Not since the 1956 Winter Games in Cortina D'Ampezzo, Italy ? when Arthur Tyler, William Dodge, Charles Butler and James Lamy claimed the bronze ? have U.S. men bobsledders managed to medal.
The same spell evidently doesn't hold for American women bobsledders. On their first time down the track in the Olympics this week, driver Jill Bakken, Park City, and brakeman Vonetta Flowers of Helena, Ala., won gold.
In fact, Matt Roy, the director of the U.S. Bobsled and Skeleton Federation, thinks there is no longer a U.S. medal drought because the women broke it. The monkey is off the bobsledders' back, he claimed.
What are the men's chances of earning a medal?
"I think they're excellent," Roy said. "I would call Todd (Hays) and his crew a favorite."
For America's bobsledding men, the story wasn't always one of failure.
The first two times the sport was part of the Winter Games, 1928 in St. Moritz, Switzerland, and 1932 in Lake Placid, N.Y., American four-man bobsledders took gold and silver medals. At the latter Olympics, the first for two-man bobsleds, U.S. crews also collected the gold and bronze.
During the 1936 games at Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, two-man U.S. bobsleds won the gold and bronze.
World War II broke out, precluding Olympics in 1940 and 1944. But in the 1948 Games at St. Moritz, America won gold and bronze in four-man, and bronze in two-man.
The 1952 Winter Olympics in Oslo, Norway, saw U.S. silver medals for both four- and two-man sleds.
Then came that four-man bronze in 1956.
Through 1956, the United States had never failed to bring home a medal in bobsled. And after that, U.S. male bobsledders did not win another. It has been a complete shut-out since then.
The 1994 Winter Games in Lillehammer, Norway, were especially humiliating for the United States. Not only was the sled driven by Brian Shimer (Naples, Fla.) the first ever disqualified because its runners allegedly were too warm, the other U.S. sled finished behind the Jamaican Bobsled Team's entry.
This year, the two-man bob driven by Todd Hays (Del Rio, Texas) came within a hairsbreadth of breaking the spell. Hays and brakeman Garrett Hines (Atlanta, Ga.) missed the bronze by just 0.03 of a second. Shimer and brakeman Darrin Steele of Sherrard, Ill. placed ninth in a race dominated by German and Swiss bobsleds.
America's last opportunity is in four-man bobsled during four heats on Friday and Saturday at the Utah Olympic Park. Each day's races will be run from 3:30 to 6:40 p.m. At the end, swiftest cumulative times will determine the medals.
The U.S. entries will be headed by Hays and Shimer.
Athletes filling out Hays' team are Schuffenhauer, Randy Jones, Winston-Salem, N.C.; and Hines. If they win a medal, Jones and Hines will be the second and third black athletes to medal in the Winter Games. Flowers was the first.
Shimer's sledmates were likely to be Doug Sharp, Jeffersonville, Ind.; Dan Steele, Rock Island, Ill.; and Dan's twin, Darrin Steele, Sherrard, Ill.
E-MAIL: bau@desnews.com