Olympic hopefuls converge on Kearns for bobsled, skeleton team tryouts

Bobsled and skeleton Olympic hopefuls participated in “the largest combine” Chris Fogt, team USA bobsled head coach, has ever been a part of Saturday, with over 100 athletes from across the country competing for a chance to join the national teams’ rosters.

A combination of hype from the recent Paris Olympics, and the announcement of Utah as a host for the 2034 Winter Games, has provided the team with a strong recruitment platform, Fogt said, leading to this impressive showing at the Olympic Oval in Kearns. The U.S. Army major, three-time Olympian and Olympic silver medalist is in his second year as head coach.

Usually, the team brings smaller combines to different cities, for a turnout of eight to 10 athletes, Fogt said, but he's happy with how the larger event is going.

It's extremely competitive, with only three or four top contenders receiving an all-expense-paid invitation to a rookie camp in Lake Placid, New York, where they will "get a chance to push on ice, get down the hill and get integrated," Fogt said.

The athletes come from all sports, represent a large age range, and have traveled far and wide to attend. A 36-year-old from Boston, who used to play rugby and hockey, said he bought a flight out five days ago for "the T-shirt and a story."

Seventeen-year-olds, who moved to Utah for short-track speed skating, also gave the combine a shot. Athletes came from as close as Orem and as far away as Arizona, California, Connecticut and Florida. Many were or are currently collegiate athletes.

A group from Utah Valley University, Fogt's alma mater, made an appearance with the head coach recruiting at its back-to-school orientation Friday.

While there are only 18 months until the Winter Olympics in Milan, Italy, Fogt is working to create a long-term pipeline of Olympians in Utah.

The coach said that there has been a Utah Olympian in every sliding sport national team since 2002, "so I'm trying to keep that tradition going."

"I would love to see the growth of the sport here," he said. "I'd love to see club teams. I'd love to see more colleges and high school kids getting involved in the sliding sports." An 18-year-old will be the "prime bobsled age" by the time the 2034 Olympics rolls around, he said.

Coaches and staff gathered performance data from a series of exercises — broad jump, a 40-meter dash, a weighted sled push, and a standing vertical jump — to determine who would be the best candidates for the national team.

Kaysha Love, a Herriman native who competed in the 2022 Beijing Olympics, said bobsled is great because "it's a new beginning sport." While in some events, like figure skating, athletes have been practicing since they were 4 years old, Love said you don't need to know anything about it before joining the team.

"In our national team right now, we have athletes who come from track, basketball, football, softball, crossfit, we see just athletes from all different sport backgrounds," said Love. The team is looking for a rare physical combination of "big, strong, fast," she said, but the mental game is important as well.

Athletes typically travel November through March, mostly in Europe, representing the U.S. in the World Cup Tour. It requires a lot of sacrifices, according to Love, and "doesn't really leave a whole lot of room for a personal life."

The sport is expensive, with a year of athlete development costing between $30,000 and $50,000, according to the USA Bobsled and Skeleton Foundation, and teams rely on donations and sponsorship because they don't receive any federal funding.

"And then you have to be a little crazy, to hurl yourself down a mountain, going 80 miles an hour," Love said, "so it's just a group full of adrenaline junkie, fun, great people."

Combine participants will hear back in the next few days whether or not they are moving on to the next stage of training.

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