Skeleton

Skeleton racer Jon Montgomery of Russell, Man., didn't get into the sport until 2002 but progressed quickly, working his way up to the World Cup circuit in late 2006.

He won a bronze in his debut at Calgary, then reached the podium four times in 2007-08 en route to finishing the season second overall.

His lone medal of the 2008-09 season came in Whistler, B.C., at the 2010 Olympics course, while teammate Jeff Pain placed third. He has one podium finish this current World Cup season. He lives and trains in Calgary.

You grew up in Russell, Man.?
I did.

Is that a pretty flat place?
It is. Russell has one piece of topography. We've got one hill, which is like a ski hill. And you'd drive around the valley and show up and think that that was the biggest hill around there.

Right.
But going from a flat-land boy to skeleton racing was when I moved to Calgary.

I had an opportunity to take advantage of the facilities that were around from the '88 Games. And get involved with something, a few things that I had never tried before. I got involved with a few things.

So how old were you when you moved to Calgary, and what, why did you move?
I moved for a job. I finished my schooling. And my employer was in Western Canada, they sent me out there to work. ... And basically, I was just working and looking to get involved with something.

So you were an active athlete?
Yeah, I was a hockey player growing up, and I wasn't playing hockey any more. I was basically looking for something to get involved in. I was a bit of gym rat, and I was really not training for anything. And I was looking for something that I guess, I could get something out of. [He first saw skeleton during a casual visit to Canada Olympic Park in Calgary and was intrigued enough to try it.]

Now how did you actually go about trying skeleton in early 2002?
Well, I found a workshop called Discover Skeleton. ... They were all full for that season, though, ... but he [an organizer] told me to just show up [on the final night]. There might be cancellations. So I took off from work early, I asked my boss. And I drove like hell out of the city, and luckily for me, it was a really cold night and lots of people didn't show up, so I got to get in the first group. That was my very first run. I ran back to the ice and I wanted one more to do. And I was able to do four runs that day from two different starts.

So when was it that you realized that the skeleton was something you could do at this high level? Not just for fun on weekends. Did you go in with that idea? Like I want to find something that will take me to the top?
I was talking to a teammate of mine, and he remembers when I started, this conversation. I don't. It was rather crazy. ... I said, "I want to go to the Olympics." So I guess I was verbalizing that, but I don't know if there was ever a point while I was doing skeleton that I thought it, but I realized here's a viable opportunity, taking part and participating - that through hard work, that I should be able to get to that level. Like the first two years, I really struggled. Big time. Of the new recruits that started with me, I was probably the worst of the bunch.

What was that first run like? Do you remember that?
Well, it was obviously exciting, it just encouraged me to run on the ice like that. It was just exhilarating. And it was definitely an adrenalin rush. There was forces acting on your body that you can't get anywhere else in life. Like in a car, you can drive fast but they're all lateral forces. They're not pushing you into the ice. Speed, the speed was incredible, and I guess you get more of an appreciation for it when your face is that close to the ice, and you can appreciate how fast you're going. And with the confines being quite close in skeleton, the walls are flying past you, it really accentuates the fact that you're going that fast. And the noise is, the sound, you hear it. It's totally sensory overload.

Do you know when you've had a great run?
Yep.

So you don't have to look at a clock or anything?
Nine times out of 10, I'd say 80 to 90 per cent of the time, when you feel like you've had a good run, you have. There are occasions where you can be like, "I should have been faster," but my time doesn't reflect it. Quite often you could have been overdriving. You might have hit a soft patch on the track, where there was bit of snow, where are lot of people are travelling through, so. But you know when you've got the flow.

What about pressure now? How do you deal with pressure, and is there a certain pressure associated with the Olympics?
Well, I've never been before [a Games]. And I'm not trying to make it any different from any other race. I'm going to approach it like any other race, head down the track that day without the added pressure of saying, "Okay man, this is the Olympics. You've got to really perform here. Everybody is watching." I'm not going to do that to myself. I'm going to enjoy the experience. Prepare for it like any other race.