In search of the elusive Olympic double

Bobsledding requires a physical transformation that’s counterproductive for track. Bobsledders strive to be heavy because mass translates to speed down the icy course. If a sled, crew and equipment are under the maximum weight (for example, 748 pounds in women’s bobsledding), a team can bolt extra weight to the inside of its sled as ballast, but it is harder to push dead weight at the starting line, so it is better to carry the heft as muscle.

Jones gained 20 pounds for her first season of bobsled, shed most of it for the 2013 track season, then gained 30 more since July — at one point consuming 9,000 calories a day. 

But she was especially motivated to see the scale reach 160. Her two Summer Olympics produced two disappointments. A famous stumble over the penultimate hurdle in Beijing cost her gold in 2008, and in London she finished fourth in the 100-meter hurdles.

“If I won a freakin’ medal — if I won any medal — I would not be a bobsledder,” she told HBO’s “Real Sports” last year. “I’m so desperate.”

A third obstacle is financial.

Last spring Jones was startled to receive a check for $741.84 from the national bobsled federation for seven months of work. Yet when she tried to expose the difficulty of living on that amount in a cheeky online video, the backlash was swift. Her male teammates interpreted it as being ungrateful.

“I saw all the hubbub,” Williams said, admitting that she, too, was a bit naive about the pay scale.

“You think when you achieve excellence that you’re rewarded monetarily,” she said. “That’s what America gives the idea of. To be the best at what you do and not be rewarded for it is a tough pill to swallow. I think bobsledders are OK with not being rewarded monetarily — but they achieve the same level of excellence as a track-and-field athlete. They put in just as much work.”

Williams has been receiving $1,000 a month since late October, when she was named to the national team. But from July to September, she was on her own.

“I made six figures my whole career, all 10 years, then I had no figures,” she said. “It was the first time since I was 20 years old that I didn’t know where my income was going to come from. But that wasn’t the main focus — how rich I would get from becoming a bobsledder or how broke I would be. That’s not the reason I joined track and field either. (Bobsledding) was just ‘Let me try this and see how good I am at it.’”

So Williams bought the $400 bobsled shoes and the $200 “burn” vest to protect her skin from friction abrasions in case the sled flipped. She laid out at least $1,500 to rent a car and an apartment in Calgary, Alberta, for three weeks of training. She spent $200 an hour for ice time at an indoor training facility where she could practice her starts. The U.S. federation provided a helmet, and a teammate lent her a training suit. As a brakewoman, she did not have to chip in the $7,000 that drivers usually pay for a single set of steel runners that go under the sled.

Finally, even if an athlete makes the A team, there is almost always an element of subjectivity in choosing an Olympic squad. Critics have already put forth conspiracy theories about marketability versus merit when the U.S. left two-time world championship medalist Katie Eberling off the roster in favor of Jones, Williams and Aja Evans. Even purists were baffled.  

“That’s cutting a lot of experience,” said John Morgan, a former national team member and a TV analyst at the last eight Winter Games. “There’s all this emphasis on the first 50 meters, but you’re not a sandbag. You have to really know where you are and feel where you are in the sled — especially on the Sochi track with the uphill sections. It’s a lost art, riding the sled. This isn’t tennis. There is no let.”

Carol Lewis, meanwhile, believes that bobsledders can make up time for small mistakes, and that by choosing Williams and Jones the U.S. will send two athletes to Sochi who have already been tested under the greatest pressure on the biggest stage. “In track — as Lolo has seen — you have no time for mistakes,” Lewis said, noting there is value in that.

In the end, if Jones captures a medal, it’s redemptive. If Williams makes the podium, it’s historic. Williams would become one of two U.S. athletes to claim Olympic medals in two seasons. And if she takes gold, she would be the first woman — and second athlete ever — to have Summer and Winter Olympic victories. American Eddie Eagan triumphed as a light-heavyweight boxer at the 1920 Antwerp Olympics and in four-man bobsled in 1932 in Lake Placid.

To Lewis, however, Williams’ and Jones’ placement is secondary.

“I just hope they do well,” she said, “and bring more track athletes to cross over.”