Not content to simply bob along

Monday 20 August 2012

ATHLETICS, jumping, and all that jazz have taken a back seat to the rear seat in a bobsleigh for Gillian Cooke but when I bumped into her amid the frenzy of London 2012, the Edinburgh Olympian revealed plans to once again expand her sporting horizons.

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Doug Gillion

Cooke has won Scottish long jump and pole vault titles, and triple jump and sprints. She contested the first two at the Commonwealth Games, triple jumped at the Youth Games, and sprinted for Scotland. She was steeped in athletics until she answered an advert on Facebook and tried out for the GB bobsleigh squad. Five months after her debut on ice she was world champion – Britain's first in 44 years. Then she was in the Olympic team.

Britain's athletes have focused on the heat of 2012 in recent weeks, but Cooke's mind has been on ice. "Bobsleigh training starts in Bath at the end of the month," she says. "We are back on ice at the end of next month, go to Latvia in October, North America for the World Cup in November and then the World Championships in St Moritz. The goal is to qualify for the 2014 Winter Olympics, and everything is geared towards Sochi and a medal-winning performance."There is another 2014 target, however. "I will try to qualify for the long jump at the Commonwealths in Glasgow," she revealed.Cooke was co-holder of the Scottish record when she quit, at 6.43 metres, which would have qualified her for the Olympic final in London. "Who would have thought that 6.40 would get you into an Olympic final?" she said, "but I'd have had to jump 6.75 to be selected. I have no regrets about switching to bobsleigh."The Scottish long jump standard for 2014 is 6.20m – a distance Cooke reached 22 times in the three seasons prior to switching sports.Cooke was spewed out of the bob upside down at 70mph on the Whistler run, where one competitor died. She suffered severe nerve injury and internal degloving, and for almost 18 months believed she might never walk properly again. She was like a crab on stairs. "I had to go up and down sideways," she said. "There definitely were times I thought I wasn't going to get back. You have gone from being at a physical peak and then you are struggling to do normal everyday things – can't get up stairs, struggling even to jog. Nobody could say when or if the nerve would recover full function. It was a little step at a time, and having faith that one day it would be better."During that time she did a bobsleigh driving course (no need to sprint and push start). "I really enjoyed it, but we had to put out the strongest partnership to secure funding, which meant a world top-eight finish."So it was back to being a brakewoman, teaming up with Paula Walker, the 2011 world junior champion. "We were seventh, so basically our funding is secure for this year."It was strange watching the Olympics, but great to feel the buzz around Team GB. I think it's done wonders for 2014. I was at Glasgow Science Park two weeks ago, doing a presentation on the science and technology of bobsleigh. People were saying the Olympics had made them want to buy tickets for Glasgow."The hardest art of bobsleigh preparation is keeping warm. "In Calgary last winter it was -37°C with the windchill. Warming up is a challenge. I do most of mine in the changing room, layer up, do sprint drills, and come back in again. And at altitude everything feels 10 times harder than it should do."There's so much more risk of pulling a muscle. You layer up in training, but in competition it's just one layer of Lycra – not much more than you'd have for a summer athletics competition."This year she tried a dummy run "to see if 2014 would be feasible," coming off the bob circuit on to the athletics season and winning the East of Scotland championships in May. "As long as I come back from the Winter Games in one piece, it looks possible."I am not going to compromise preparations for Sochi, but getting the qualifying distance next year would put me in a strong position. I definitely think it's viable. I think I can still approach 6.43. Get the record back? That would be nice. I always said if I did Glasgow, it would be with the aim of winning a medal. That hasn't changed."Gold in Delhi went for 6.50 and bronze for 6.44."Bobsleigh training is not so different from jumping – that's what made me successful in the bob to begin with. The attributes I needed were there, and I am still coached by Ann and John Scott, who have coached me for the past 12 years."As a youngster Cooke won Scottish district titles in gymnastics and fencing, and played representative table tennis and club football. Earlier this year Jade Nimmo took the Scottish long jump best outright (6.47m), but Cooke remains equal second, sixth in the pole vault (3.90m), fifth in triple jump (12.56m), and was Scotland's top-ranked 100m sprinter in 2008 before switching to bobsleigh.She used to play the trumpet in a jazz band. "I haven't played recently. Maybe if I found a quieter instrument, it would be easier when I'm travelling the circuit."Glasgow 2014 will mean athletics retirement, she says. It was the entree to "competing at the highest level in sport, which is what I always wanted to do. I went through so many sports as a child, just to try and get there. Bobsleigh has allowed me to be a full-time athlete. It's everything I dreamed of doing, not necessarily in the sport I thought it would be, but I wouldn't change anything. It's given me so many opportunities I'd never have had otherwise."A sports science graduate from the University of Glasgow she admits: "Even that was a back-up plan. First and foremost I wanted to be a top-level sportsperson. The degree was plan B. Once I retire from sports, I'll work out what I really want to do when I grow up."interview Athlete and bobsleigher Gillian Cooke has her sights set on medals at the 2014 Winter Olympics and at Glasgow 2014, writes Doug Gillon

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