Steven Holcomb ‘97 Wins Four-Man Bobsled Gold
Steven Holcomb, Winter Sports School Class of 1997, has made history. For the United States, he has ended a 62 year drought in Olympic four-man bobsled gold medals. For his old high school, he has become the first alum to win an Olympic medal of any color outside the discipline of alpine skiing — it just happens to be gold.
Steven carried the weight of high expectations coming into the four-man Bobsled competition. While he finished outside of the medals in sixth place at the Torino Olympics in 2006, he improved over the years to come into these games as the reigning world champion. And he met those expectations by laying down the fastest runs in the first two heats during the first day of competition, giving his team a cushion of 0.40 seconds coming into the second day. That’s an eternity in four-man bobsled.
He then came into the second day and blazed yet another run to win the third heat as well, extending his lead to .45 seconds.
Perhaps at that point Steven finally decided he’d sent a strong enough message. In the fourth heat he seemed content at long last to take a slightly more conservative approach to the run to avoid a crash — the only disaster that could take the gold away from him at that point. He still finished the fourth heat with the third-fastest time and with a .38 second final margin of victory over the rest of the field.
“It’s an amazing feeling,” Steven said of his result. “You dream about it for years, and all the sudden, it’s happening. … I don’t know. It’s just kind of overwhelming.”
You’re the very picture of grace under pressure, Steven, and all of us here at The Winter Sports School are cheering your tremendous accomplishment. Well done!
