They feel the need, the need for speed.
With all due respect to the screenwriters of Top Gun, the oft-quoted Tom Cruise line could be said about Canadian sliding athletes. After all, they do compete in some of the fastest, most exhilarating sports at the Olympic Winter Games. From the top of an ice track, they travel at speeds upwards of 140 km/hr, navigating their sleds through a dozen or more turns, aware that the smallest shifts made in their steering could be the biggest difference maker in race results.
Here’s a look at what the 2024-25 season has in store for Team Canada athletes in the sliding sports of bobsleigh, skeleton, and luge.
Though there are no top tier competitions taking place in Canada this winter, Canadian bobsleigh athletes should feel almost at home when the IBSF World Championships take place in upstate New York in March. It’s a track on which they have competed a lot, whether that be in North American Cup or World Cup races.
One athlete with high expectations for the season is Cynthia Appiah, whose only World Cup podium in 2023-24 came in the season finale for women’s monobob in Lake Placid. She had been very close to more podiums throughout the season, recording three fifth-place finishes in monobob. That followed a super successful 2022-23 season in which she ranked third in the overall World Cup standings for monobob. In two-woman, Appiah will compete with rookie brakewoman Skylar Sieben, who came to bobsleigh this season from track and field.
“The last few weeks in Whistler have been encouraging,” Appiah said of the team’s pre-season training. “The recruits have all been eager to get in the sled and learned the ropes of the sled. There’s a breath of fresh air that’s finally been injected into the air of our program, and you can see the excitement in everyone’s eyes on the team. This is an important season for us, and I know we’re ready to prove to the world that Team Canada is back.”
Two-time Olympian Melissa Lotholz will be back on the World Cup circuit after spending last season on the developmental North American Cup circuit. She had taken a hiatus from bobsleigh in 2022-23 to finish her degree at the University of Alberta and needed time to get comfortable in the pilot seat once again. After finishing first overall in the North American Cup standings for women’s bobsleigh and then winning the monobob at the recently held Canadian championships, Lotholz looks to be in fine form. She’ll be pushed in the two-woman sled by her former U of A track and field teammate Leah Walkeden.
Appiah and Lotholz will race in two IBSF World Cup stops in December in Altenberg, Germany and Sigulda, Latvia before the circuit takes its holiday break.
When World Cup competition resumes in January, they will be joined by a few more sleds who will start their seasons on the North American Cup circuit. That includes a third pilot in the women’s events, Bianca Ribi, who will race alongside brakewoman Niamh Haughey, as well as two male pilots. The goal is to qualify three women’s sleds for the world championships.
On the men’s side, Olympian Taylor Austin and Patrick Norton are also on Ribi’s competition path. Both have some World Cup experience but spent most of last season on developmental circuits, with Norton ranking third overall in the North American Cup standings. Austin’s crew includes Chris Ashley, Shane Ohrt, Mark Zanette, and Yoan Eskrick-Parkindon, while Norton will compete with Mike Evelyn, Keaton Bruggeling, Luke Puto, and Josh Langford.
Last season, Hallie Clarke stunned everyone by winning the world title in women’s skeleton. At 19, she became the youngest athlete to ever hold that title and the first Canadian to do so since 2003.
Leading up to those world championships, Clarke didn’t have an exceptional season as she adjusted to new equipment and a new team around her, having returned to compete for Canada after a year representing the United States. But with the mentality that she had nothing to lose, she surprised even herself.
READ: Youngest ever skeleton world champion Hallie Clarke launching headfirst into the new season
Because she is such a young athlete, there are still tracks around the world on which Clarke has not competed. She opened the 2024-25 IBSF World Cup season on one such track in PyeongChang, South Korea and finished sixth in the first race. That was a better World Cup result than she had achieved throughout the 2023-24 season.
Clarke will have an experienced teammate to seek advice from in two-time Olympian Jane Channell. The 36-year-old veteran has four career World Cup podiums on her resumé since debuting on the circuit in 2015.
Staying at home this season will be Mirela Rahneva, another two-time Olympian who is taking time to rest and allow her body to recover after close to a decade of racing at the highest level.
The biggest competition of the season for Canadian luge athletes will be on home ice. The FIL World Championships will take place at the Whistler Sliding Centre in February. It’s a very familiar track to many members of Canada’s young national team.
At just 22-years-old, Trinity Ellis from nearby Pemberton, B.C. could be considered the veteran leader of the women’s singles squad. The Beijing 2022 Olympian finished fifth at the 2024 U23 World Championships on a very tricky track in Altenberg, Germany.
Two of Ellis’ best friends, who both hail from Whistler, will join her on the World Cup circuit.
Nineteen-year-old Embyr-Lee Susko had her Olympic dream sparked while on a field trip to the sliding centre when she was seven. She showed her potential with a silver medal at the 2024 Junior World Championships.
Caitlin Nash might be best known for what she has done in doubles, including a silver medal at the 2020 Youth Olympic Games with the since-retired Natalie Corless. Still just 21, Nash has switched her focus to singles and finished one spot ahead of Ellis at the 2024 World Championships.
Rounding out the women’s World Cup team is Carolyn Maxwell, a 24-year-old from Calgary who was inspired to get into luge by family friend and Olympic silver medallist Justin Snith.
Competing for Canada in men’s singles will be Dylan Morse and Theo Downey who are at the start of their World Cup careers. Cole Zajanski and Devin Wardrope are Canada’s men’s doubles team. Though still in their early 20s, they’ve been on the World Cup circuit for a couple of seasons and are looking to take the next step upwards in the standings.
