Refreshed National Bobsleigh Program Ready to Charge into Pre-Olympic Season

CALGARY—A new generation of Canadian bobsleigh athletes will look to continue a tradition of excellence that spans nearly six decades at all levels of the sport while sliding around the world with the maple leaf on their sleds during the critical pre-Olympic 2024-25 season.

Bobsleigh Canada Skeleton has completed the National Bobsleigh Program team selection process, naming 35 athletes who will fill 10 Canadians sleds piloted by six women and four men at international competitions.

With the goal of qualifying three women’s sleds for the 2025 World Championships in Lake Placid, NY, a trio of medal-winning pilots will lead the charge for the Canucks. Olympians Cynthia Appiah (Toronto) and Melissa Lotholz (Barrhead, Alta.) will begin their season on the World Cup. Appiah will team up with rookie Skylar Sieben (Cochrane, Alta.) who joined the program this year from the sport of heptathlon, while Lotholz will reconnect with her University of Alberta track and field teammate, Leah Walkeden (Edmonton).

Balancing her time working for the Calgary Fire Department while chasing her Olympic dream, Bianca Ribi (Calgary) will begin her season with Niamh Haughey (Scarborough, Ont.) on the North American Cup circuit before tackling the World Cup following the Christmas break.

Amanda MacCarthy (Ottawa) will serve as alternate for the women’s World Cup sleds.

“Our team has gone through some challenging times since Beijing 2022, with this season being the most difficult (financially). However, there’s a massive bright spot in our future, with the huge turnout of returning athletes and new recruits that we’ve had over the summer who have now joined our program,” said Appiah, who has six monobob and three two-woman medals on the World Cup. “The last few weeks in Whistler have been encouraging. 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.”

Canada’s top two men’s crews piloted by Taylor Austin (Lethbridge, Alta.) and Patrick Norton (Ottawa) will follow Ribi’s race plan and begin their season on the North American Cup before sliding onto the elite tour in January.

Austin, who drove his four-man sled to the bronze-medal step of the World Cup podium on home ice in 2022, will team up with veterans Chris Ashley (Calgary) and Shane Ohrt (Edmonton), along with newcomers Mark Zanette (Woodbridge, Ont.) and Yohan Eskrick-Parkinson (Calgary). Zanette was recruited to the program through RBC Training Ground, while Eskrick-Parkinson – a former elite-level diver – was encouraged to join bobsleigh by fellow Jamaican-Canadian and two-time Olympic medallist, Lascelles Brown.

Pat Norton will bring a high-profiled crew with him on both the development and elite circuits. Norton welcomes back Olympian Mike Evelyn (Ottawa), CFL receiver with the Ottawa Redblacks Keaton Bruggeling (Ottawa), Luke Puto (Humboldt, Sask.) and rookie Josh Langford (Woodlawn, Ont).

“Over the last three seasons, Cynthia, Melissa, Bianca, Taylor and Pat along with their crews have proven that a new generation of Canadian bobsledders have arrived and are ready to carry the torch for our program on the track to 2026 and beyond,” said Jesse Lumsden, a three-time Olympic bobsledder and former CFL player who was named high-performance director of Bobsleigh Canada Skeleton in June. “They lead one of Canada’s most diverse and inclusive group of winter sport programs who are determined to achieve their performance goals and deliver results on the World Cup while we continue to nurture and develop a deep pool of athletes in a healthy and supportive culture of excellence.”

Five more Canadian sleds will spend the 2024-25 season developing on the North American Cup circuit

Olympian Kristen Bujnowski (Mount Brydges, Ont.) will have Charlotte Ross (Ottawa) on the brakes, while recently crowned two-woman champion Mackenzie Stewart (Madeira Park, B.C.) will team up with former varsity hockey player, Morgan Ramsay (Rivers, Man.). A retired elite-level ringette player, Toronto’s Erica Voss, who also earned her way into the National Bobsleigh Program through RBC Training Ground in 2018, will unite with a former competitive show jumper, turned bobsleigh athlete, Eden Wilson (Calgary). Brittney Bult (Brampton, Ont.) and Caelan Brown (Orillia, Ont.) will be the alternates on the North American Cup sleds.

Development Bobsleigh Team pilots Jay Dearborn (Ottawa) and Cyrus Gray (Duncan, B.C.), will also fine tune their driving skills on the development circuit.

Dearborn, who played defensive back for the Saskatchewan Roughriders, will pilot a crew of Kenny M’Pindou (Edmonton), Tobi Ade (Calgary), Brandon Loewen (Ottawa), and D’andre Clarke-Bastien (Toronto).

Another Canadian Football League alumni, Shaquille Murray-Lawrence (Scarborough, Ont.), along with Calgary’s Davidson de Souza - who immigrated to Canada from Brazil – Cesar de Guzman (Toronto), and Chris Holmstead (Calgary) will provide the horsepower for Cyrus Gray.

“We are now less than 15 months away from the big dance. As a program, we have clear goals for where we should be by the end of the season, and we are focused on the process to get there,” said Murray-Lawrence, who began the chase for his Olympic dream in bobsleigh four years ago. “With many new recruits on the team, it is up to the veterans to clarify the mission and help the newer athletes get up to speed. As a men’s program, it is time to deliver.”

Bobsleigh Canada Skeleton welcomed six new athletes – Charlotte Ross, Skylar Sieben, Tobi Ade, D’andre Clarke-Bastien, Josh Langford, and Mark Zanette – to the program who were recruited from the RBC Training Ground initiative – the new breeding ground for Canada’s sliding sports.

Canada’s Olympic medal-winning bobsleigh pilots – Justin Kripps and Lyndon Rush – will deliver the technical coaching required for the National Bobsleigh Program. Athletes will also leverage strength and condition coaching through a continued partnership with the Canadian Sport Institute Alberta, and coach Quin Sekulich, who has helped develop countless sliding-sport athletes into Olympic, World Championship and World Cup podium results over the last decade.

Each of Canada’s 10 sleds will begin the competitive season taking part in this weekend’s North American Cup at the Whistler Sliding Centre, November 22-26. Team Appiah and Team Lotholz will fore-run the race before heading to the World Cup opener in Altenberg, Germany, December 7-8.

Bobsleigh CANADA Skeleton is a non-profit organization and the national governing body for the sports of bobsleigh and skeleton in Canada. With the support of its valued corporate partners – Karbon, Athabasca Oil Corporation in collaboration with Canada Action’s I Love Canada Energy, Joe Rocket and Driving Force – along with the Government of Canada, Own the Podium and the Canadian Olympic Committee, Bobsleigh CANADA Skeleton develops champions in the community, on and off the track, who have a passion for bobsleigh and skeleton. Please visit us at www.bobsleighcanadaskeleton.ca.