Racing down the track at nearly 100mph, Bobsled Olympian Christopher Spring knows that the difference between winning and crashing is measured in fractions. We talk piloting a bobsled/bobsleigh, being a 4x Olympian and sitting really close together. Then, we unveil a new Candle of the Month and countdown the Top 5 Winter Sports Movies.

Christopher Spring: 01:38

Pointless: 46:42

Top 5: 01:12:36

Sponsor: Go to BetterHelp.com/POINTLESS for 10% off your first month of therapy

nickvinzant@gmail.com (Show Email)

https://www.instagram.com/spring.chris (Chris Spring Instagram)

https://twitter.com/spring_chris_ (Chris Spring Twitter)

Christopher Spring: Olympic Bobsled Pilot Interview

Nick VinZant 0:12

Welcome to Profoundly Pointless. My name is Nick VinZant Coming up in this episode, bobsledding and winter movies.

Christopher Spring 0:21

This sleeds are very difficult to drive. They're finicky they, they have like personality you have to. And you're not so much driving this slide like you would drive a car, you're just trying to guide the sled down the track. But if you miss guide it, you'll end up on your head. The secret is more about timing, not so much on how much you're steering, you got to hold on and you can tell the difficulty of a track by how much noise is in the the warm up hot.

Nick VinZant 0:57

I want to thank you so much for joining us. If you get a chance, subscribe, leave us a rating or review, we really appreciate it really helps us out. If you're a new listener, welcome to the show. If you're a longtime listener, thank you so much for all of your support. So our first guest is a four time Olympian in one of the fastest and most dangerous sports out there. It's a sport, where the difference between crashing and winning is just a fraction of an image. This is Olympian bobsledder, or Bob slay Christopher spring, how does this compare in real life? To what I see on TV? Is it anything like that? Or is the track just wildly different and faster?

Christopher Spring 1:47

I don't think TV gives it any justice, to be honest. And they're really trying these days with, like G force monitors and accelerometers inside of this slide to give the audience like some sort of feedback so that they're like, oh, like, That's how fast they're going, Oh, that's how much G force they're producing. But you know, when you watch sleds go down the track, especially like, most people just watch our sport at the Olympic Games. They'll see the slide look exactly, you know, one sled to the next, it all looks pretty similar. But the truth is, when you're when you're learning or when you go to a new track, and you don't know how to drive it. It's crazy man, people are, people are crashing, and the rounds are just not that smooth. And it takes years and years and years of experience to like get to that point where it's just like, where, where the public look at it. And they're like, well, I could do that.

Nick VinZant 2:45

It definitely like right to me looking at it from the outside. I'm like, All right. So it's four dudes, they start running, they jump in the sled and they just go down the track,

Christopher Spring 2:55

this was a very difficult to drive. That's just the easiest way to put it there. They're finicky, they, they have like a personality you have to and you know, so much driving this slide, like you would drive a car, you're just trying to guide the sled down the track, but if you miss guide it, you'll end up on your head, and it can hurt. And so I think that I think that most people, you know, they see they see the sled, you know, not making many errors, a couple of taps here, maybe a skid there. But for the most part, it looks quite easy, but But what we're actually doing in there's just these finite movements the whole way down the track to obtain that perfect block. How do you even get

Nick VinZant 3:43

to your level in the sense that it seems like something that like, you don't do it, unless you're really good at it? Like it doesn't seem like something that would be very conducive to like, alright, it's my first time and then you crash and you crash and you crash like how it doesn't seem like there's a beginner stage,

Christopher Spring 4:02

the beginner stage is wild. And excuse me, it's it's one of the few sports that actually get safer, the better you get because I look at sports like you know like your traditional sports especially here in cow like hockey or football. And when you start off playing those sports, you know, you got lots of pads on you. It's very slow the game is slowed down a lot for you. You started at a very young age, there's lots of coaches and reps on the on the field or on the ice or whatever helping you pass and all this kind of stuff, right? And the the the better you get at it the more your skills develop and in my eyes the safer the sport gets in in bossley There's no way to slow the sled down that much. And sort of when you're when you're starting to learn how to drive you. You we give you some theory or you know when I first learned Next, you know, I walked down the track with a coach, I try and memorize which way that the curves go. That way I don't get lost down the track. And then I'm trying to memorize what steers I need to do in each corner. Because the way I drive now is very based off feeling feeling of pressure in my body, the feeling of what this lead is doing. But when you're first learning, you don't have that feeling in your body. So you're just steering based on on a program that someone gives you come in at about this point in the track, you steer the slide here, you release that steer, you come around, you steer here and where you go. And so it's it's very rudimentary or very mechanical way of learning how to drive. But it really is the only way to learn until you get that feeling. And when you first start, you're just, you're just hoping that what you're learning, you're actually applying that to the track. And most times, those those first couple years, people are crashing a lot. And it hurts. And it's hard to find people to jump in the back because they're like, Oh, screw that I want to get in with the bad like, I saw what happened last time. And so yeah, it's a really difficult sport to develop in, until you get to a point where you're ready, good. And then people actually want to, to race with you and be competitive with you. That's that learning curve, it's very difficult. And we see a lot of athletes come into the sport. But it's really difficult for athletes to stay in the sport.

Nick VinZant 6:36

That makes a lot of sense, right? It's not like you can there's no bunny slopes or practice runs, it's like, right, you just gotta go,

Christopher Spring 6:44

we can start a little further down the track each each bobsled track around the world has these kind of junior stops that you can start at where you can put the sled in at like let's say, instead of instead of starting at, at the very first corner, you start down at corner four, or corner six or something like that. And then you can yield a slight goes a little bit slower and you don't get the full track. But then you graduate up the track to the top and you know where you go. But it's, it's still a very difficult sport to learn. Because it's so hard to you know, I talk to people, I've done a little coaching in my, in my career and I, you know, tell people about like when you feel the pressure in your hand. And they're like, they're looking at me, like I'm speaking a different language like, What do you mean, feel this pressure in my hand? I can't feel anything.

Nick VinZant 7:36

So when we talk about like driving a bobsled, I don't actually know what that means. Like, I have no idea what you're doing for all I know, like you're putting your hands on the ice and just like pushing it like I don't know what that actually means. Driving like, what do you how do you drive it, I have no idea.

Christopher Spring 7:56

So inside the slide, like at the very front, that's where I sit in a way I can see what's going on. I have they used to have a steering wheel actually back in the day. Yeah, just this little tiny steering wheel just like in a car, maybe people were driving down the sled like this. But they found that that, you know, if you turn left with the steering wheel, and then you needed to turn right, this takes a lot of time to like go from turning left attending right and some of the steers we have to do a very, very quick. And so they graduated from a steering wheel to two handles just like this. And basically these handles are connected to the front axle of the sled. And if you pull right, the front, runner blades will turn to the right. And if you pull left they they turn to the left and and then we can be a lot quicker on our steers to go from right to left because they're independent of each other. And we don't have to turn a wheel this way or that way. Right. And there's also some, some bungees in there that will help return the sled back return the steering back to neutral we call it or or the starting point that way we always are returning it back to go straight down the track. But we're not really like cranking stairs so much like you would in a car. If you think like we're going quite fast, right? So if you're if you're driving down the highway 120 kilometers an hour 100 or snob tracks 150 kilometers out, which is over 90 miles an hour. If you're driving down the highway at those speeds, you're not going to be you know, making some severe turns right. So it's all very kind of soft and smooth turns that we're making and the secret is more about timing, not so much on how much you're staring at But on the like the point in which you're staring in the track. And so timing is very important, more so than the amount that you're stealing,

Nick VinZant 10:08

are you anticipating the turns kind of like, okay, I need to go a little bit this way, a little bit that way.

Christopher Spring 10:15

Like I have a perfect run and every every ball sidetrack in the world have a perfect round laid out in my mind. I don't know if anyone has ever done the perfect, perfect round, ever, in a bobsled, they might think that they have. But there's always something where you could have been like, hi, you know, if I was like two more inches this way, and this corner, a little bit higher in this corner. And so what we're actually trying to do down the track is, is execute this perfect run. But the reality is, we're, we're just making corrections all the way down the track. So I'll come out of let's say, I'm here in Whistler right now. And it's the fastest track in the world. And if I come out of corner one, ideally, I want to be on the middle right hand side, going into corner to that maybe I'm like, you know, a few inches to the left. And the speed that corner two's coming out, you can't just change that in between, in between the two corners. So that's what I that's what I've given myself. And so I'm just going to make a slight correction in the entrance of two, because there was going to be a little bit more pressure, because my, my entry into the corner isn't as ideal, and hopefully I'll get back on track. But if I don't, it's no big deal, because I'm only just a little bit off. And so when I exit to maybe, you know, I ideally would like to be early into three with a sled angle pointed up into the curve, but maybe I'm a bit more parallel, so then I have to just fix it a little bit. And that's all we're doing the whole way down the track is we're looking ahead at what we've given ourselves from the last corner, and what we have to achieve in the next corner and trying to adjust as we go. And basically, it's what you're hoping for is that you don't have to adjust too much. Because every time you're steering you're, you're creating friction in the sled and slowing down the acceleration. And so the less we steer, the faster we'll go.

Nick VinZant 12:27

Just for kind of my understanding, right? Like if you didn't steer it at all, is this thing just like bouncing off the sides the whole way down?

Christopher Spring 12:34

Yeah, it's like it's sliding off of corn. It's hitting the roof. It's it's bang in the if you're skidding you're banging walls, you're gonna end up on your head, somewhere down

Nick VinZant 12:47

the track. Seems like it would really hurt.

Christopher Spring 12:51

You're not It's not allowed to when it when you crash. It's loud. And

Nick VinZant 12:59

what are you doing you crash you just like, Fuck, yeah, you hide? Hope the guy in front of you or behind you is taller, I guess.

Christopher Spring 13:08

Yeah, basically, informatics it's very difficult to hide because there's, like, if you ever get the chance to look inside a bobsled, there's not a whole lot of room. And there's some cool pictures that you can see on the internet, from, you know, Olympics or World championship races of water format slide looks like with the athletes in it from above. And it's like what crammed in there, it's just like, it's small, and there's no room. And so, you know, when I'm when I'm driving down the track, I've got my teammate behind me. And he's kind of squished up you know, behind me here and then I've got the cowling in front of me. And so if we crash, I'm just like, you know, the best I can do is go from from here to to here. And then it's not very much you know, my head is gonna get that it's gonna get hit a couple times and my shoulders gonna get get burnt maybe a little bit because there's quite a lot of friction on the on the ice and people get can get severe burns to their skin to the point where I've I know people that have had to get skin grafts from other parts of that body because that because that burnt the skin off of their, of their shoulders.

Nick VinZant 14:23

But then if you crash right as the pilot did the other three guys are they just like Way to go, man. Because it's basically what's, how does that conversation in the bobsled go after? Because it's basically it's not like the guy in the back is the reason that you crash. Like how does that conversation go?

Christopher Spring 14:40

Yeah, it's tough. It's, it's like hey, sorry, sorry, guys. But that was my mistake. You know what I mean? Like and typically, you know, at the at the level that we're at, you know, at a Olympic or world level. You're there because you you trust in your pilot you believe in, in the team and that ability of the team to win medals and, you know, shit happens, right? And sometimes you crash it's the better you get the the less you're crashing you know in the last 10 years I think I've had five crashes maybe. And so it doesn't happen very often the better you get. And you know when it when it does happen, you know, I buy the guys some beers later that week to say sorry, and but they're but they're also very trusting in me as well and they're ready to get back in the sled and encouraging me and being like, Hey, man, it was, you know, don't worry about it. You're a great driver, you've you've driven this track well, before we've won medals here, let's, let's get out there on the race and let's, you know, let's do our thing. And, and most of the time, you know, crashes are just the kind of just sneak up on you.

Nick VinZant 15:55

So how did you get started, right, like bobsled doesn't seem to be necessarily the kind of, unless you're kind of born into it like a family tradition. Like, it doesn't seem like the sport you're like, you know what? bobsledding?

Christopher Spring 16:08

Oh, yeah, 100%. And you know what, most people, I would say that, again, the 95% of people in the world aren't even thinking about bobsled at the time that they're 20 years old. They even they might not even know what a bobsled is. And yet they become Olympic and world champion some of these people. It's, it's pretty cool how the transitions happen. So for me, actually, so I was born in Australia as well. I have like kind of a weird one. I think I have like a hybrid accent. And I was living in Canada on a one year work visa. And while I was in Calgary, which is in Alberta, they hosted the 1988 Winter Olympic Games. There's a bobsled track there. And you know, I grew up in ad I was born in the 80s. And I remember this movie Cool Runnings, and I'm like, this is where this is when the movie like this is it, this is where the movie was. And so I'm like, Well, I'm gonna go to this, Bob. So check it like, go see some Cool Runnings memorabilia or something, you know, like, go just check it out. And so you know, and I was athletic, too. It wasn't like I was a guy on the couch, just like, you know, what is this? So I went there. And I was running track at the time, and just was talking to people like, hey, like, because there was a race on at the time, I didn't even know there was those people racing like Canadian championships. And I'm like, wow, this is cool. Like, what does that person do? Or what is that thing on a sled? Or, like, how does that work? And just ask him questions with people. And this one guy was like, why just learn how to drive like, you want to jump in with me. And, you know, I'm this Ozzie guy traveling around, so of course, I'm like, Heck, yeah, let's go Where do I sign up. And it kind of just all fell, fell into my lap from there. And, you know, turns out that I didn't particularly like being in the back of his sled, I wanted to learn how to drive the sled and you take what's called a driving school, where you learn like these fundamentals of how to drive a sled, basically, it's like, you have no idea what's going on, you're just sitting in this seat, and, you know, trying to make it down the track. And, yeah, kind of just, it just went from there. But I would say most people, most people get into the sport through like, a recruitment drive. I know here in Canada, we we have like an online submission that you can do if you're interested in the sport, you can submit like it's kind of like doing a combine online, you send it in and then if you have you put up some good numbers and we invite you out to do some testing and you know, kind of the ball rolls from there and it's very similar in the in the US as well. There's a few hubs that they have across the country and you can submit your your testing results online and then you know, there are some amazing athletes out there that do this and that's like, where did you come from?

Nick VinZant 19:20

They everybody looks like a running back. Is there a reason that everybody kind of looks like that?

Christopher Spring 19:26

Yeah, like we've got to get the sled moving fast and they say those three things to be successful. In the sport of bobsled, you need to push fast, drive good and have good equipment like good sled. And you know, the first part of it is pushing fast because if you if when by the time everyone jumps in the sled if if you're already in last position, you can't, you can't No matter how good your equipment is or how good of a driver you are, you just can't pick up those places. down the track, you can pick up a few spots, but definitely not from last first. And so you have to be pushing fast. The slideways Forman sled weighs 210 kilograms, so

Nick VinZant 20:14

Oh, that's under pounds. Yeah. Yeah.

Christopher Spring 20:19

And so we want to get that sled moving as fast as possible. And most of the time, like a stereotypical Bob's letter is around. Yes, six foot one 225 30 pounds. And there's some exceptions. There are some guys that that are, you know, 63642 4245. And there are some smaller guys that are 510 200. And, you know, because we do have a weight limit that we have to stay under. And so you kind of juggle that with with the different guys that you have. But yeah, typically big, strong, powerful guys and girls, like the girls are incredible. The way that the sport is evolved in both men's and women's bobsled, the athleticism and both in all the athletes. It's just every year, another level gets you think that oh, there's no way people can push faster than this. And then it just keeps going up and up and up. From my

Nick VinZant 21:28

perspective, right? Like I base everything like alright, explosive power on like the 40 yard dash or the vertical leap? Like, what would what would most people be doing in those kinds of tests?

Christopher Spring 21:42

Hmm, I'm from watching NFL Combine, if you run like a four, three, or a four, four, these are like crazy numbers, right? Yeah, I would say that, that some of the best guys are running like, like four or 546. But they're also 225 to 30 pounds.

Nick VinZant 22:05

So how different are our most tracks generally the same? Or are can tracks kind of vary pretty wildly?

Christopher Spring 22:15

Yeah, there is a lot of variance to be honest, some tracks are similar. But they all have their own personality as well. When, when a track is built, there is a regulations or there's some rules that they have to build within, there has to you know, can't be too long or too short, it can't be too steep. There has to be certain amount of turns and, and certain types of turns as well. But for the most part, but those those regulations are quite open and you can make it you can make a track, like totally, totally different. So the track in Park City, Utah, is typically quite an easier track, it's still, it's still pretty fast, we'll do like 130 kilometers an hour. To get down the track, it's it's usually quite easy. Same with a track in Austria, in, in this place called eagles in Austria, it's there, those are typically like easier tracks. And then, you know, you get to a track like Lake Placid in upstate New York. And it's wild. Like that track is, like hold on, you get to the bottom after a good run. And you're beat up. The guys in the back are like, bad. I know it was a good run, but I'm feeling it back here. You know, like it's, you got to hold on and you can tell the difficulty of a track by how much noise is in the, the warm up pot at the, at the top of the track where all the athletes, just that's where we are before we go and drive outside down the track. Like all international athletes were in this one. It's like a locker room but less fancy. And we're all in there together. And if it's a difficult track, nobody's talking. It's very serious in there. There's a lot of concentration. You know, people are like, looking at each other and giving them a like, you know, like hey, all the best kind of thing. But if it's an easy track, people are joking around and people are playing games and laugh and carrying on and you know planning while they're doing this weekend and all this kind of stuff. So it's hilarious to see that the difference? You know, just in the in the stock house or in that warm up pot of how difficult to track is by the level of volume of noises up there.

Nick VinZant 24:52

What's the hardest track?

Christopher Spring 24:55

I would it depends who you ask because is practice makes perfect. So a lot of people think that the track right here in Whistler is the hardest track. For me, I don't personally think so because, you know, we train here all the time. So I'm, I'm quite used to it in saying that I still respect to the track. And there's still some of that quietness that goes on, even for me before I go down the track. But typically, there's three tracks that everyone talks about in the world that are the hottest tracks. It's here in Whistler, BC, Lake Placid, in New York, and Oldenburg. In Germany, which is in Saxony. It's like the state over there in Germany, it's in East Germany, right next to the Czech border. Those are the three most difficult tracks in the world in my eyes, and I would say and 99% of people that eyes, too, and even the break, but no, they're like, oh, man, we're going Altenburg next week.

Nick VinZant 25:58

So what are the other people in the ER, they just basically they push and then they're just hanging out, are you kind of telling them like, Hey, guys, lean left, mean, right? Or they just like I pushed now I just hold on for the rest of the

Christopher Spring 26:14

year, you got it, they push and they get in. And that's it. I don't want to dumb it down too much like that, because their job is extremely important. Pushing that sled, like I was saying, if you don't, if you don't push past, then you have no chance of being successful in the race. So we have to push fast. So their job already is, like I'm so very grateful when we when we have a fast Bush, because then it gives us as a team way more chance of success. And then getting into the sled. There's not a lot of room in there, right. So getting four big guys to get inside this sled, this tiny little sled and sit in a good aerodynamic shape is a lot harder than then you would, then you would think and practice does make perfect. But he's got to practice a lot to get in to do that. So to not only push the sled fast, but to then load with speed so that you're not slowing the sled down as you're getting into the sled. And then to sit in a position that creates, you know, this really nice aerodynamic position in the slide where everything is like, it's trailing down. So it's, it's, you know, you don't get in any of this dirty air at the back. And no one's heads higher than the person in front of them's had things like that shoulders aren't up. And it's it's a science and like the teams that do it really well. are usually the teams that are very successful as well.

Nick VinZant 27:54

So how do they decide like who gets in? Second, third, fourth? Is it just based on height?

Christopher Spring 28:01

No, not always based on height. It's usually based on your physical attributes as an athlete. So if you're, you know, the person that gets in last, has to be running the longest. So typically, they're the fastest athlete as well. Because they're the one that they're the one that is continuing to run while everyone's getting in there still running. And if they're not that fast, and they're going to be slowing the sled down, right. So typically, the bigger, stronger athletes that aren't as fast are helping get the sled moving. And like breaking that inertia, so to speak. And then getting in and the faster athletes are the ones that are getting in last.

Nick VinZant 28:46

How okay, how far is it from like, once you start to once you get into the sled?

Christopher Spring 28:54

It's roughly around 50 meters.

Nick VinZant 28:58

Give or take that's farther than I thought it was?

Christopher Spring 29:01

Yeah, it depends on how steep the track is. Right? So some, some tracks are very flat. And so you push for longer. Because you don't ever reach that speed where you're like, Well, I can't keep up anymore. And some tracks are really steep where it's like you gotta push and just get in. And so I don't know how far I run but I have this like built in head ometer in my brain that just a number pops up when I get in the sled and I know how many steps I took. And in a in a track that's really steep. informat I'm taking 12 or 14 steps. And in a track that's very flat. I'll take 20 steps. And so, you know, if you think I think when, when most sprinters run 100 meters, they're running like 45 Steps. Yeah. And so, you know, if I'm taking 20 steps, I'm probably running 40 meters, somewhere around that.

Nick VinZant 30:07

Is that how, like everybody in the sled does it right? Like just throwing out numbers. The first guy takes 12, the second guy takes 16 other guy takes two, right is like, is everybody counting like I take this many steps, then I get in,

Christopher Spring 30:21

no one's usually counting, it's it. It's based off of when the pilot gets in, basically. So if I get in, then the guy that's sitting number two behind me usually takes like, he'll see me get in, and then he'll react to that. Okay, now, on my next cycle, I'm gonna get in. And then the number three guy will be like, Oh, I saw the number two guy get in. So on my next cycle, I'm gonna get in. And then it usually is two or four steps later. So if I take 12, it's like 14 or 16 steps for the guy behind me. And then 16 or 18 for the next guy, and so on and so forth. Are you

Nick VinZant 30:57

ready for some harder slash listener submitted questions? Yeah, let's

Christopher Spring 31:01

do it. Let's start

Nick VinZant 31:03

with the easy one. How do you feel about Cool Runnings, his Cool Runnings, the only bobsled movie that exists?

Christopher Spring 31:10

While there's more bobsled movies are actually in the documentary. It's kind of like a bob slay lifestyle documentary. And so it's not the only Bob slay movie. But for the most part, and I can't even cringed when I said, like, Oh, I was, you know, that's how I got into sport is because I have watched Cool Runnings. It's because at times, it can devalue our sport, because the athletes that are in the sport are there so freaky. And it's crazy how, how athletic they are. And then, you know, when we get a reference towards Cool Runnings, which is a great film, and it's really brought a lot of attention to the sport and it continues to do so over the years. Sometimes it can just devalue the the level of competition that we have in the sport.

Nick VinZant 32:07

It's a love hate relationship. I get it. Yeah, um, yeah. Your favorite track your least favorite track, not that it's a bad track. Just that like, that's, that's not my cup of tea.

Christopher Spring 32:20

Pretty good track. And I think everyone will say this. It's in Switzerland, in a town called St. Moritz. And it's because that's the birthplace of our sport. That's where our sport began. That's where they first started bobsledding. So there's a lot of history there. And it's what's called a natural track. So they actually build the track out of snow and ice every single year, like a huge ice sculpture. And it has personality behind the track. It's so smooth to slide on, it's quiet. And like I said, there's so much tradition there. And it's the only natural track left in the world. And so every time we go on slide there, it's magic. I'd probably say eagles in Austria, because it's such an easy track. And if you don't push fast, you have no chance of winning. And so it kind of takes my skill out of it. My driving skill out of it, so, but the towel is beautiful. So there's a plus

Nick VinZant 33:21

favorite piece of bobsledder lingo.

Christopher Spring 33:25

Oh, there's lots of there's lots of lingo in the in the balsley world, and we have a lot we have, like our own language here in Canada that we we use a lot. And I would say that we use this word rents. We used to use it all the time. And you could just interchange it with whatever you want. Like, man, I rent to that run, as in. I was a good run for I just got rinsed on that run as in I had a bad run. Yeah,

Nick VinZant 34:02

context, right. It's all in the context.

Christopher Spring 34:04

Exactly. I don't even know how this word even came about or got involved or you know, I could be sitting at dinner I'd be like, Yo, can you rinse me one of those brownies

Nick VinZant 34:14

just applies for everything. It's contact? Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Is there trash talking bobsled you ever like

Christopher Spring 34:24

the Yeah, you guys so it's all fun. And games too, though. Like there is trash talk. But it's it's all within good fun. Like we're, we're very small sport. And so we travel a lot together with all the nations we stay in the same hotels a lot of the time. And you know, at the end of the season, we're all we're all party and together to write and so there is some trash talk, but it's it's all in good in good faith and good humor.

Nick VinZant 34:49

Like what would you say to like what would be an example of bobsled trash talk?

Christopher Spring 34:58

Like what Yesterday I was on the track, helping coach a little bit. And the number one driver in the world from Germany was walking by and he says, Hey, Chris, you don't start and the World Cup race? And I said, Nah, I'm still rehabbing an injury. And he's like, Ha, you're like, vacation slider. Oh, I don't know if it's trash talk it up. But yeah, it's just

Nick VinZant 35:26

yeah, things. Worst crash.

Christopher Spring 35:30

You. Yeah, I had a really bad crash in 10 years ago, in 2012. In on this difficult track in East Germany and Altenburg, where I went through the roof of the track, like I crashed my sled and we're upside down, and we hit the roof, which is, you know, the roofs there just to keep sleds inside the track. And yeah, we hit it. And we actually, like, pierced through the roof at 120 kilometers an hour. And we kind of got stuck in the metal structure of the roof. And it like it basically, like can open the sled. And there was a, there's a lot of wood up in there and a two by four impaled me. And I'm saying this with like, like a smile on my face. Jokingly and I look at your face, and you're like, What the heck. It definitely was worse than what I'm portraying it to be. But I feel like that's the only way I can talk about it without you know, getting into the moment too much. And yeah, it was a really bad crack. And I was out for for many months. And so when my teammates and typically that never happens that that was kind of like one of those freak accidents that happen. But yeah, I was. I was impaled. I broke my nose and was impaled by a piece of wood through my butt and into my back and made a full recovery, though. And three of us out of the four in that sled. Two years later, competed at the Olympic Games. So pretty pumped about that.

Nick VinZant 37:10

Damn. Yeah. Run like then after. Like, after that. Were you? Like, holy shit. Am I gonna do this again? I'm sure 10 Yeah, I just think about talking about it. But

Christopher Spring 37:26

not particularly but but my first round back, I did it at a very easy track with my coach who jumped in the back. And it was just the two of us there on Valentine's Day, actually. And we ripped down the track and I was like, Oh, it's just like riding the bike, no problems. But definitely for four years after I, I struggled a lot with with some anxiety around it and PTSD and stuff like that. It was just things that to overcome with my coaches and support stuff. And even going back to that track, every time I go back there to races. There's always some of those feelings there. And it's always brought up to you know, and I do my best to, you know, put those feelings aside until after I'm done. But, you know, inevitably they're going to creep in. But we've had some great results on that track since then. And every time I go there, I'm really excited to race it. Because generally we do pretty well there now.

Nick VinZant 38:25

The so like what country would you say that bobsled is the biggest in Germany hands down? Anybody even close?

Christopher Spring 38:39

In terms of like tradition, maybe Switzerland. But that that that would be the over that? No, no one's close. There's the top country in the world for the last, I don't know, decades and decades and decades, has always been Germany. There. They're winning a lot of battles. There's a rich history within within the sliding sports lose skeleton and bobsled. It's very well funded. The crowds there are amazing. And there's huge supporters and fans and it's cool vibe to race there because people are into it.

Nick VinZant 39:16

Not to bring it up again. But like who's got the best chance? Because I know of the chant from Cool Runnings. Like does everybody have a chat? Or do you guys Oh, yeah.

Christopher Spring 39:26

No, people have a chat. You know, like, you know, everyone, yeah, sometimes there's like some, some slabs like this, and fist pumps, you know, like, people put their hands in and it's like 123, or whatever it is. The chant that I that I had for the last few years, is we put our hands together. And I'd say, I'd say kind of kind of quiet and say what time and then the guys would say game time, and then I'd say what time game time. And that's what that's what we would do. Um, but I would say the best chat. Actually, I saw this Austrian skeleton girl racing last week here in Whistler, and it's just her and her coach. And she like, like, punches him. I know, that slaps his head like this, and it's this little girl, she's probably like five foot five, 120 pounds or something. And he's just standing there, like, big guy, he's a Olympic silver medalist. And, you know, he's, she's like, she's kind of shaken on the block. She's like, ready to go? The lights on a screen and boom, slaps put the sled down it goes, and I'm like, Whoa, this girl is fired up.

Nick VinZant 40:47

Oh, who has the hardest time getting in the slide? Like, is there a position where like, oh, that's the hardest one.

Christopher Spring 40:55

I would say it's the pilot. You know, we have this smallest amount of room to get in there. And I think I'm pretty good at getting into Slack. Like, I pride myself on how fast I can get into Slack. But some of my teammates, you know, like, there's been a couple times where I've, like, tripped getting in or like, you know, had some trouble getting in. And they're like, Wow, it's like, watching Santa Claus trying to get down that chimney. Man. You're like, really struggling to get in there to squeeze your body into this into this sled, you know. But typically, if you if you watch like, like bobsled fails, at the start, push start. It's the guys on the side. They have the hardest time getting in and it like, it looks easy when it's done. Right? But it's not like it's really difficult to do it properly. And to do it really well.

Nick VinZant 41:52

I'll end on this one. It's kind of funny. So when you go out to eat, or you go hang out with the other guys on the team, how close do you guys sit together at restaurants like are you so used to just be in bunched up that you're all like, Oh, why are those four guys on one side of the booth? Like, oh, that's the bobsled team.

Christopher Spring 42:14

You know, I want to I want to achieve the this fairy tale going and I'll say, Yeah, we sit right next to each other. You know, we've been stripped down to make sure we're in our lycra, you know, in that span that we just sit down next to each other because we love it. We love it. We use it ourselves. And it's not unusual, like when we're in the car, you know, and if there's the back seats open, and there's only two guys sitting back there. Now we sit together. We don't sit on either side. We're gonna sit together. All four in the front, right? That's it. Yeah, we got that bench seat. We just sit.

Nick VinZant 42:57

Here comes the bobsled team. We get three teams 21 car. Man, you got a young 2024 or too early

Christopher Spring 43:07

2026. We just added games. This year did it. So we got 26 Yeah, the Summer Games in Paris. 24.

Nick VinZant 43:17

Right. That's right. Well,

Christopher Spring 43:21

yeah, I just had knee surgery in the earlier this year, just to clean up a dodgy knee I've had for many years and so just rehabbing with trying to come back and you know, make a decision next year when I'm healthy. And I would like to. I am my nickname is old man spring. Because I'm the old guy. So, you know, people are probably like, Man, when is this guy gonna retire? He's so old. But you know, I love it. And we're still successful. So why not keep going if I can just if my body can hold up? That's the biggest, biggest challenge.

Nick VinZant 44:01

That's all the questions I got me Is there anything else we missed? Or kinda what's coming up next for you?

Christopher Spring 44:08

Well, the World Cup is next week here in Whistler. And unfortunately, it's the first time I went race a World Cup at home here and like over 10 years, and you know, it'll be sad not to race but also, like needed as well. Like, I can't just keep beating my body up now. Like, I gotta give it a rest sometimes, too, right? So yeah, and then I took a coaching job here this winter, while I rehab and I'm going to be taking care of these like younger kids trying to teach them how to drive a bobsled and hopefully get them to the Youth Olympic Games next year. So that's kind of like a cool new challenge for me. Whilst also trying to fit in like my next career after sport is on my commercial pilot's license, so I'm flying a bunch and try to Trying to get hours widen. And, you know, see where that takes me as well.