Saturday, March 12, 2011

2011 World Championships Update

Hello Everyone,

I hope every ones week is off to a Great Start and if not Maybe you need to do a Desk Pop! I believe my last Desk Pop was September "08" (The Other Guys Reference, Watch it! It Good Un huh lol)

Thanks too the USA's High Speed Internet I have been able to upload all of my pictures!!! And unfortunately it was this Shirt Fairy going around stealing shirts before some photos and for some reason he kept getting me when I was not looking! lol All the new pictures are on my Media page within the first five selections on the list.

The last three weeks of the season were kind of interesting, some of it was good and some of it was uhmmmm not so good!! But before I get a head of myself let me reiterate the World Championships (WCH) format. As I stated we were there for three week the first week was an international training week that allows for drivers to get acquainted with a newly constructed tract or in this case a tracked that made changes to existing turns, followed by two weeks of racing. During World Championships there is one week of racing dedicated to each discipline within the sport. Thereby meaning that one week is dedicated solely to 2-man training followed by the 2-man race, and one week is dedicated solely to 4-man training and racing. In both instances four heats of racing are held over two days (Saturday and Sunday) with two heats per day. In the first heat of the race all sleds go off in order according to their World Ranking, in the second heat the sleds go off in reverse order 20-1 then the sleds not in the top twenty go off 21... until the end. On the third day of racing sleds go off 1 till the end, and only the top twenty sleds get a fourth run.

For the USA after National Team Trials are over with we have a Selection Committee who has been given the authority to choose who races what races in World Championships and also in the Olympic Games. In this case my teammate Laszlo was chosen to race 2-Man WCH with our Driver Napier and I was chosen to race the Team Event for WCH. The team event is where each discipline Men's and Women's Bobsled, and Men's and Women's Skeleton from a country take one run each down the track, the totals are taken and the team with the overall fastest time down wins. Each country is allocated two teams as long as they have the available athletes. The hard thing about the team event is that unlike a regular race where you know exactly how much time you have to warm up before you go, in this format it is constantly changing depending on how team member in front of you finished. At one point depending on your teammate you could be going off 1st and the next minute you can be going off 15th, so you have to do your best to be warmed up good but too soon. In addition to the fact that the Team Event was about four hours after the two man event making for a very long day considering we arrived at the track at 8:30 am and did not leave until 6pm.

In the 2-Man race my team mates finished on USA 2 finished 22nd, USA 1 Holcomb and Langton finished 6th, and USA 3 Butner and Quinn finished 25th out of 32 sleds. And while I am on the subject our girls kicked some Serious butt in there 2-man race!!! USA 1 Shauna and Val took Silver, USA 3 Meyers (First World Cup Season and WCH) and Gruebel took 9th, and USA 2 Schaaf and Azevedo took 10th out of 22 sleds!!!

In the team event USA 2 ( Daly, Meyers/Koplin, O'shea, and Napier/Beckom) the team I was on finished 8th and the USA 1 (Antoine, Schaaf/Azevedo, Uhlaender, and Holcomb/Tomasevicz) team finished 9th out of 15 teams. Don't get me wrong we always want to win every race we are in but it did feel good to be the USA 1 team!! Also, on this particular track there is a series of curves called the S's (S1-S4) because they are literally shaped like to S's laid horizontally. During most of the training week and in the earlier 2-Man race Napier had trouble with S4 where he came off the turn too early causing a dramatic skid going into a long straight away resulting in a significant lost of time. However during the team event Napier improved his exit on S4 (I am going to say it was due to my excellent ridding position in the back of the sled!!! I make it go straight lol! But its true!) resulting in us going faster than all of his heats in the 2-man race and closer too Holcomb in down time then he had been all week. After the race Napier was feeling confident heading into the week of 4-man, and I was feeling happy because he seemed to be getting a little of his swagger back.

Bobsled racing is like any other thing in life where if you have a bad moment, play, heat, presentation, test, race or day you have to quickly put it behind you and move forward. This is the mentality I have and what I expect of my teammates going into 4-man week. Four-Man week is the week everyone is excited for since it is the Original Bobsled format before Two-Man was introduced at the 1932 Olympic Games in Lake Placid, New York. The 4-man is the event where all four of your Big Dawgs are at the line and all 800lbs of them combined are Jacked up out of their minds, blood pumping like a volcano ready to erupt, chompin at the bit to push the sled to Ludicrous speed right past Lone Star and Barf!!! lol http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mk7VWcuVOf0 The point is that come 4-Man day WCH the boys are ready!! and the Grim Reaper better take the day of if he knows what's good for him because if he wants some he can get some too!! We'll make that Sickle into and Popsicle and send his butt home to Momma Grimm! That's what I'm...Talkin....Bout! lol

Early in the the week of 4-man training we were pretty equal at the push with everyone else but our down times were pretty far off the mark so we were examining every possibility to the cause. Napier and the coaches were adjusting the sled steering to set it up just the way Napes wanted to where he thought it would be fast on this track. With the steering you can either give the driver more control or less control which determines how much he has to steer through a turn. On some tracks some drivers feel like they need one or the other so they obtain input from the coaches then make the appropriate changes. While this was going on the other brakemen and I were working on our loads and ridding position, finding ways to become more aerodynamic. The coaches and Napes would look at us from different angles of the sled taking pictures at times to show us how we looked in the sled. We changed helmets for this race that were more rounded than some of the previous helmets we were wearing resulting in better air flow and allowed us to get lower. Resulting in us shaving a little more time off at the bottom of the track and being closer to USA 1 and the other sleds, however there seemed to be some time being left on the tack but that is not something we could really dwell on much longer since the race was in two days, sometimes you just have to trust it will all come together on race day.

On the day of the race we were the 14th sled of the top of the hill, which is an important number for me to know as an athlete who is planning the perfect warm-up before a race. Depending on the athlete a pre-race warm-up can last between 30-60 minutes, and each sled take about two minutes to make it down and the track is cleared. So being the 14th sled off lets me know that I will go off about twenty-five minutes after the start of the race, I then add (count 35minutes backwards) an additional Thirty-five minutes to that to determine my warm up time. For example if the race starts at 11:30 am I will start my warm up at 10:25am which allows me a few extra minutes to spare.

We all warm up like usual, get to the line and ready to go! Since I am running the Brakes on the Sled I check both side pushers positions and the drivers position to make sure everyone is ready than I start the Cadence screaming out BACK-SET!!! Napier then Scream FRONT SET READY AND!!! I start my drop on the A since I have the longest distance to travel, which ensures that I hit the sled on the D in and along with my teammates. Now the race is on!! We all push and load with no major issues the ride down was not the smoothest and it show in our down time. We were in 11th when we finished our trip but it was still some good teams to follow and by the end of the first heat we were sitting in 18th place, this is not where we wanted to be but hey it happens. On the ride up to the top the only thing on our mind is push harder get lower and trust Napes will do his thing. The second run we push and load the same and Napes finds a little of what he did not have the first trip and on this trip instead of the being the 18th fastest sled down the hill we were the 14th fastest sled down! However some other sleds went faster the second run as well so we were only able to over take one sled moving us into 17th place going into the second day of racing. But even though we were in 17th place the best news is that we are only .12 out of the top ten!!! This is a tight race people and believe me knowing this we are all pretty excited since our goal is still in sight!

That night .12 was the only thing on my mind and what could I do to try and help us grab that .12. I talked to m teammates stressing the fact that we if we each just push 3 hundredths faster we can grab that time at the top and it will just multiply down the track! Literally that was the only thing on my mind the whole night! The next morning I woke up I thinking WAX!! I need some WAX because we were out and since our sleds had these new vinyl wraps on them we were told we did not need to wax the sleds. Today I was uhmmm .12 yeah I am going to wax the heck out of Elanor (The Sleds Name) and she is going to fly down the track! I knocked on one of the Skeleton girls rooms who I know had some wax (this may have been at 7:30am) asked her to look through her already packed bags for her wax because we really needed it. Thankfully she searched through her bags and found it for me, I then grabbed my teammates to help me flip the sled so I could wax it down. By the time I got done waxing Elanor she was looking so fast and smooth, the sled cover would not even stay on she was look smooth as butter babe!!

Our race was at 12:05 in the afternoon and as usual we left out an hour and a half before the race. We do this to make sure we have enough time to warm up plus you have to have all sled work done forty-five minutes before the start of the race. This means that the runners have to be on, cover off the sled and any mechanical adjustments that need to be made all need to be finished by that time. If you are still working on the sled or the sled is not at the top within that time frame your team would be disqualified or at the least get a hefty fine.

Like normal we are all warming-up getting ready for the race talking with each other making sure we are all feeling good. I am happy to say that we all were feeling good maybe even better than we did the first day! As we warmed up it began to snow a bit then after a while the snow began to get more consistent which changes the way we need to go about our start. Recognizing this I talked to my other brakemen and told them that make sure by the time the sled is dropped that they are ready to go! I told them to have their warm-up gear off and we are not going to wast time putting our shoe covers in the sled, we are just going to drop the sled call cadence and go. I then spoke with Napier letting him know that due to the snow we are going to be on a quick pace to get the sled down and go. We do this because even though they sweep the snow out of the start groves before every sled the snow still continues to accumulate in the start grooves. As you can imagine that extra snow in the start grooves cause the start to be slower and in order to mitigate the affects of the snow you get the sled down as quick as possible and go. So that was our plan.......funny things about plans is that they are not always executed.

We get to the line and as the coaches are moving the sled into position we are stripping down to our speed suits, taking off our shoe covers and stepping on to the start block!! We get the clear from the Starter, the coaches drop the sled and all the brakeman are in position soon as the sled touches the ice! I look up towards the left of the sled and I see napes get down into his start position and I start the cadence screaming BACK-SET!.....but there is a pause, or silence, or maybe its to noisy and we can not hear napes say anything. Now for our sport a pause is anything that is not immediate and that could be as little as half a second because it slows down the normal speed of the cadence and our reaction time. The day before we all talked about if I call the cadence and for some reason w are not able to hear napes then we will continue to fall and hit the sled with our normal timing and like clock work all of the brakemen fall and hit the sled at the same time!! Problem is Napes does not and we all see this and feel this as we hit! The sled is moving and napes is on the bar but he is now trying to catch up with the sled instead of helping push! Even though this all happens within a few seconds it plays in slow motion in our head, it is also at that moment that we realize that we are now out of any possible chance of getting into the top ten and may be out of the top twenty removing the possibility of getting a second run. Now Napes getting into the sled has to try mentally recover from what just happened at the start so that he can effectively drive the sled down. At this point as we load the thought that is in my mind and I am sure it is in the other guys mind is you have to be kidding me we are now out of this race. We get to the bottom and it is not a happy scene by any means of the imagination some tempers fly and now we play the waiting game to see if we get a fourth run. This was not the way this day was suppose to go and none of us saw this coming. As we get back to the top our teammates watching and had watched the replay told us what we already knew, that we left Napier at the start! Luckily we get a fourth run, so now we have to regroup to push one more time. The second heat the timing was better since we all hit the sled at the same time but we lost so much time on the 3rd heat it was really no coming back from it and we finished 19th overall.

It just goes to show you that no matter the situation be it sports, office work, or personal life if you are working on a team with a person(s) if you are all not on the same page in achieving a goal than that goal will not be achieved.

There may be a little frustration in my e-mail but it can not be helped because we were really close to acheiving our goal and we fell short when it counted the most. I am frustrated but my spirits are not down it just gives me motivation to work harder and get into a better situation next year.

I am pleased to say that USA 1 4-Man team took Bronze in the race and although it was cool watching them get their awards it would have been cooler to getting one right next to them.

Thank you again for all your support this Season and I will Bring home some Better Medals this Next Season!!

The 2010/2011 Season has come to an end and now starts the 2011-2012 Season!! And its off to Colorado Springs to Start training.



Special Thanks to all My Financial Sponsors



NOW Foods - the official site of NOW Foods International Contractors - Construction Salem Baptist Church of Chicago - Rev. James T. Meeks


Courts Plus | Elmhurst, IL, Fraternal Order of Police-Chicago Lodge 7 Wake Forest University VIsion Salon Manatts Construction



John D. Jevitz, DC - Chiropractic - Elmhurst, IL
Dr. Thomas Greenwald Orthopedic Surgeon Dr. Joseph Thometz Otrhopedic Surgeon


Frank & Jolene Randall Sports Medicine, Consultants



Venus Beckom

Keith Mitchell Tina & Mark Fornwald
Ulanka Beckom Jesse & Addie beckom
Albert Beckom Denise Beckom
James & Anne Dout David Martin
James Elmore Verne Celestaine
Rebecca Anthony Jennifer John
Sarah Tores Albert Beckom
Stacey Ross Steve Smotherman
David Moore Kristin Houston
Beth Henning Danielle Williams
Thomas Greenwald Ernest, Hailey, Mary Hannah and Elle O'Brien Carolyn Spencer Elmhurst JC'S
Tate & Amanda Marcinkowski



God Bless
Jesse

www.jessebeckom3.com