Bobsleigh

Jesse Lumsden's World Cup bobsled career kicks off next week, but the CFL running back doesn't know if his interest in the sport will extend beyond the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver-Whistler.

"I have no idea. I don't even know what I'm having for dinner tonight,'' Lumsden said Tuesday from Cesana, Italy, where driver Pierre Lueders' team is preparing for this weekend's third World Cup race of the season.

"Each race I'm going to perform to the best of my abilities and hopefully get the opportunity to represent Canada in Vancouver at the Games. If not, then I have a football season to get ready for.''

Lueders and bobsled head coach Tuffy Latour announced Tuesday that the 27-year-old Lumsden will make his debut in the two-man event with Lueders at Winterberg, Germany on Dec. 12.

David Bissett, the 30-year-old brakeman from Lethbridge, Alta., will drive with Lueders at this weekend's third World Cup race of the season in Cesana, on the Turin 2006 Olympic track.

Lumsden, with more than 20 bobsled slides under his belt, has raced twice before with Lueders. They won the two-man event at the Canadian championships in Whistler in March and competed again at a recent Europa Cup event at Koenigssee, Germany.

A five-year CFL veteran from Burlington, Ont., Lumsden is known for his strength and speed - he can run the 40-yard dash in 4.4 seconds.

His career has also been marred by injuries to his knee, shoulders and ankle. Last season, he signed a free agent deal with the Edmonton Eskimos after four years with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats. But in the first quarter of the first game a hard hit dislocated his shoulder and ended his 2009 campaign.

Lumsden said the shoulder has been cleared by doctors and that pushing a bobsled will help rehab it.

"Everything I do with a bobsled has no negative effect on my shoulder. It's only going to make it stronger and better,'' he said on a conference call.

He admitted that latecomer newcomers like himself and track star Neville Wright can ruffle feathers of those already on the team, but he said that's the Darwinian nature of sport.

"People are always trying to take your job and you're trying to keep yours,'' he said. "I've been a new face on four football teams and now one bobsled team, and it's pretty much the same story every time. You're going to have some tension and you're going to have some acceptance, and it's all about earning trust.''

Lueders agreed: "The last couple of years the team needed some outside motivation, and bringing in these athletes has raised everybody's training and intensity.''

He dismissed a suggestion that faster start times from newcomers may be offset by the loss of intangibles such as team unity and chemistry.

"I'm not too worried about the chemistry thing.''

Lueders is testing out a number of brakemen and team combinations to find the best fit for his sled for the Olympics in February at the Whistler Sliding Centre.

Bissett, a fixture on Lueders' Canada 1 sled for two seasons, raced with him 10 days ago in Lake Placid N.Y., at the second World Cup race of the year. The pair had the fastest start time in the second run of the two-man event and finished fourth overall.

Wright drove with Lueders in the two-man and four-man at the inaugural race in Park City, Utah, to disappointing results. Their start times put them on the edge of the top third of the field. They were ninth in the two-man and 10th in the four-man events.

It has been a slow start to the season for Lueders, Canada's most-decorated slider preparing for his fifth Olympics. The 39-year-old from Edmonton has won two Olympic medals, plus 88 World Cup medals and eight more from World Championships.

He's being pushed this year by driver Lyndon Rush of Saskatoon in the Canada 2 sled.

Rush's four-man team took gold in Park City and were seventh in Lake Placid.

On the two-man, Rush and former Lueders brakeman Lascelles Brown were seventh in both events.

Lueders said he is still experimenting as the season goes, and tested different setups on his sleds in the first two events.

"That's why we do the World Cups - to get ready for the end of the season.''