![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.slidingonice.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/JoshWilliamsonHeadshot.jpeg\")
<\/a>Slider: Josh Williamson<\/strong> We do this every week, and today’s no exception: What’s your favorite track on tour and why? On a run down the track, at what point do you know a run is going good or bad? Is there a certain point?<\/em> You mentioned the facilities in Lake Placid, have you had a chance to push on the new indoor push track? Do you still push some outside on the old push track? Where’s your favorite place to visit on tour, unrelated to the track? But there\u2019s been a lot of cool towns around the tracks. I think definitely Whistler though. Innsbruck is great too, it\u2019s definitely a close second, but Whistler is my favorite for sure.<\/p>\n You came to bobsled by way of lacrosse and then \u201cNext Olympic Hopeful\u201d. What was the process of NOH like? Do you find there to be many similarities between training for lacrosse and training for bobsled? What was it like to start over from one sport that you were very good at to another sport that is entirely new? Pre-race, what is your warmup routine like? Tell us about your pets!<\/strong> What was something that most surprised you about becoming a bobsledder? Did you do a lot of stick work when you played lacrosse? What was the plan post-college had bobsled not happened?<\/strong> Do you have a specific pre or post-race meal? Have you at all considered moving up in the sled to drive? In my sports I\u2019ve noticed that I\u2019ve picked a lot of positions and a lot of things that might not get the press or the love, but are something that I feel are kind of important, and I love playing those roles. I always played defense in lacrosse even though I was pushed to play offense, I played defense in football, and even though maybe I didn\u2019t score a game-winning touchdown, but I made the plays we couldn\u2019t win without. And I kind of love that about being a brakeman. Some brakemen get a little upset that we may not be getting that love but I kind of like it, frankly. I find it romanticized to me a little bit, so I have no interest (as of now) to get up front. I won\u2019t count it out if my coaches are reading this!<\/p>\n I don\u2019t know what it is about being in the less-glamourous positions though, but I love it. I like being the guy in the back who pushed a great start time and put our pilot in position to do what he needs to do to be successful. I don\u2019t have a problem having a very specific and set role in a bigger picture. I like that, anything I can do to help our country win a medal is what I want to do.<\/p>\n There are some guys who have made amazing medal-winning careers out of being brakemen: The Lascelles Browns and Kevin Kuskes of the world! Speaking of career brakemen, you\u2019d mentioned before that Steve Langton had been an inspiration for you in a way. Have you had much of a chance to talk to him about braking? One of the funny things is that I really had no idea what I was doing. Coming from lacrosse and football the only warmups I would do would be the ones my whole team does: Static stretch, touch your toes, everyone counts to ten out loud and whatever. So I didn\u2019t really have my own warmup that year, so I\u2019d just kind of do what I saw other people doing that looked like a good idea. I had no idea what I was doing, but I was doing some kind of static stretch where I was stretching my hamstrings and static stretching before running isn\u2019t going to be super good for running. You want a little more active movement, skips and swinging movements or whatever. So it was funny, I\u2019m stretching and Steve comes up to me and is like \u201cAre you static stretching? Like before you push?\u201d and I was like \u201cYeah\u2026I don\u2019t really have a warmup.\u201d And then he was kind of telling me to do this or don\u2019t do this, then he was telling me \u201cGood luck today\u2026\u201d and it\u2019s funny because I didn\u2019t say more than maybe five or six words because I was so shell-shocked \u00a0and star-struck from this guy who I\u2019ve looked up to. And I\u2019m thinking afterwards \u201cMan, I\u2019m such an idiot! Why am I static stretching?!\u201d But I had no idea what it really meant or why it was bad at the time. But outside of that we haven\u2019t really talked much.<\/p>\n Curtis Tomasevicz has just rejoined our program and I was talking to him this weekend and he\u2019s another amazing resource and great career brakeman. Those are great brains to pick. Justin Olsen obviously went to the front seat for a bit but he has so much experience as one of the great push athletes to ever do it. We\u2019re really blessed to have those kind of great athletes back involved with our program who I can kind of pick the brains of and really learn from.<\/p>\n What has been your favorite sliding sport memory? On the other side, what’s been your hardest memory?<\/strong> Question from Jackie Narracott (AUS skeleton): Where\u2019s the coolest place you\u2019ve been traveling, outside of sliding?<\/strong>
\nTeam: USA Bobsled & Skeleton
\nHome track: Lake Placid
\nHometown: Sanford, Florida, USA<\/p>\n
\n<\/strong>I find this pretty easy! I know it\u2019s going to be a weird answer to some people but I absolutely love Lake Placid. I know it\u2019s a rough track, but I think home track advantage is great and everyone loves to win, and that\u2019s one of our best tracks for that. We slide it year-round, and I love the character it\u2019s given. Sometimes people are hesitant to come out and slide Lake Placid, but that\u2019s something that I think is great for us to lean into, and I love that our home track is a track that is sometimes feared by people. I think it\u2019s a cool thing we get to do, and I think it\u2019s a blessing that we have all of these facilities here and can spend so much time on that track. I also think it really prepares some of our new athletes, you slide somewhere like Lake Placid then you go somewhere else and think \u201cWow, is this what the sport is really like?!\u201d You get used to Lake Placid and bump around a bunch then go to another track and feel like the sport\u2019s a lot smoother!<\/p>\n
\n<\/strong>It definitely depends on the pilot! You get used to how different pilots drive and how they take different lines. I have a big focus of mine, especially in four-man at the two spot, I try to feel like I\u2019m going with the sled. I\u2019m not leaning too hard or anything but I can think \u201cOkay, we\u2019re in curve 2, then curve 3\u2026\u201d, and I can generally tell how it feels. Hunter [Church] would come to us and ask us \u201cWhat did that run feel like?\u201d and that\u2019s something that he as a pilot likes to get feedback on and see if there\u2019s something we felt that he didn\u2019t. Generally my feedback is that my timing is off somewhere, but that\u2019s how I can tell maybe we were off. Maybe we\u2019re having a rough \u201cHighway\u201d today in Placid, do I feel like I can go with the sled or am I a little bit off and that tells me that the sled is maybe a hair early or late into the turn. Like if I\u2019m hitting my head on the sled then either we\u2019re having a bad run or I\u2019ve messed up somewhere. The better I\u2019ve gotten, the less I\u2019ve messed up though, I\u2019ve been able to memorize what curves are supposed to feel like. I think especially with marquee curves at specific tracks, you get a feel for them. In Altenberg, for instance, if you feel a fourth pressure through Kreisel you know something bad is about to happen! It\u2019s kind of like, you get the feel of a Thunderbird or a Shady or something and you know what that feels like, even if it\u2019s a not crash, you know what something weird feels like.<\/p>\n
\n<\/strong>Oh, I can\u2019t get enough of it. I\u2019ve been out there every day they\u2019d let me be out there! It\u2019s an amazing facility, it\u2019s just incredible. That lodge is so cool! All of the renovations they\u2019re doing, which may have involved a planer for the job<\/strong><\/a>, are amazing but obviously that\u2019s my favorite as a brakeman.<\/p>\n
\n<\/strong><\/em>Yeah, some of us have been divvying up time there. A ramp that steep can be strenuous on something like a hamstring or something like that, and that\u2019s something we kind to kind of ease into. Whether it\u2019s getting into track spikes from trainers, getting down on the steep hill from something flat or whatever\u2026especially going into an Olympic year where it\u2019s going to be such a long year, the last thing anyone wants to do is get hurt. You really want to progress everything slowly, whether it\u2019s weights, or hills, or whatever. It\u2019s a great learning tool, too. We had a rookie camp here last week and that\u2019s a great teaching tool, we\u2019re not going to throw someone in the ice house right away or anything like that. The push track is a lot less risk, and a lot less consequences if you mess up.<\/p>\n
\n<\/strong>It\u2019s hard, but I LOVE Whistler and Whistler Village. I\u2019ve had my family up there and they love that area. It\u2019s such a cool spot that I probably wouldn\u2019t be able to afford to go to if it weren\u2019t for bobsled, realistically. But it\u2019s a great area, and that definitely has to be one of my favorites.<\/p>\n
\n<\/strong>NOH was great! It was a cool program that they were running, and I know that every year it\u2019s gotten a little better as they\u2019ve done more with it. I was the first season and it was just a really great experience and such a cool way to get into the sport. I didn\u2019t expect much to come from it, frankly. I knew there were going to be a bunch of great athletes, but I wanted to do my best and try the combine out and meet the coaches and everything. Brian Shimer and Darrin Steele were there, and I figured the best thing I could do is shake their hands, tell them I would be at the combine in Park City in August, so they know who I am. I ended up doing better than I thought, and it was a great catapult into the sport. Our rookie camp in 2017 was in August, but I got invited to go to the actual push championships in July. I wasn\u2019t super competitive by any means, but it was an experience that I otherwise wouldn\u2019t have had if I hadn\u2019t done NOH. It was also a great way for me to get some exposure and meet some of the pilots, and that season I was able to slide on North American Cup with Hunter where in any other Olympic year I wouldn\u2019t be on a sled since we were so deep and had so many athletes that year. So it kind of snowballed, and it really was the best case scenario for me.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.slidingonice.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/WilliamsonShadyTrees.jpg\")
<\/a>
\n<\/strong>I think it\u2019s very similar, but I don\u2019t think I always trained the best way I could have for lacrosse. I know a lot of people don\u2019t like distance running, but I\u2019m just particularly bad at it. Part of that is me being good at sprinting, and that makes me hate it even more: I\u2019m bad at it, I don\u2019t like doing it, and I\u2019m good at something else. So I thought \u201cWhat\u2019s the point?\u201d, but playing lacrosse that\u2019s a lot. I\u2019d be playing midfield and before you know it they\u2019d have to pull me really early in a shift because I\u2019m just gassed. I can outrun somebody but I do that, run down the field, but then we turn the ball over and I have to hustle back and I\u2019m dead and helping nobody. So I did a lot of the same stuff training with weight lifting, jumping, and sprinting. Those are things I like to do and I\u2019m good at. I almost ignored, but didn\u2019t spend as much time at the things that probably would have helped me a little more in lacrosse, and that was kind of a big appeal for me for bobsled: Let me do all of the things I really like to do in training. So it\u2019s pretty similar for me, but it probably wouldn\u2019t be for most lacrosse players.<\/p>\n
\n<\/strong><\/em>I found it a lot of fun, really. It\u2019s definitely a humbling thing, but I really enjoy those kind of experiences. At the end of the day it\u2019s something to work at. I think it\u2019s really fun to see progress at those kind of things and once you get to a really high level of something it\u2019s a little harder to see that you\u2019re still making positive progress. You\u2019re fighting a year for an inch instead of jumping leaps and bounds. I think that\u2019s something I really liked about going to bobsled: I never really had any sprint background, coming from lacrosse and football you can be fast and everything, but track sprinter fast is a whole different thing. I saw a lot of benefit of just training like a sprint athlete, and that was something that again was a new challenge for me to chase and try. It\u2019s a novel thing, being able to get something new to get better at and I really enjoy that.<\/p>\n
\n<\/strong>Really for me it\u2019s been a narrowing down process. You really have to find out what works for you. For me, I love listening to music, but I realized that for our sport, especially with me pushing, I tend to go a thousand miles an hour and I want to be someone who just blows the doors off. But that\u2019s not always good because there\u2019s a lot of patience involved in a good push, just like most things. Sometimes it\u2019s not about moving your legs as fast as you can, it\u2019s more about covering ground. There\u2019s those little nuances, and for me if I get super fired up and I\u2019m blasting Metallica or AC\/DC or whatever getting ready for the race, I love it but then I get to the line and it\u2019s a blur and I\u2019ve messed up all of those technical things I\u2019ve been working on. So for me the perfect balance is me listening to music on the car ride there, I have a 15 to 20 minute window I\u2019m getting focused and excited, but once I get to the track I\u2019m not listening to much of anything. I need to be much more quiet and in touch with my body.<\/p>\n
\nMy family has a golden retriever named Tucker! We joke that he\u2019s basically my brother because I was an only child. He\u2019s eight years old, going on nine. It\u2019s funny because now that I\u2019m out of the house\u2026my dad has always a big dog person and has had dogs all of his life. He\u2019s constantly been around dogs, and once I got out of the house it\u2019s gone to another level of taking care of the dog in place of a kid now since I\u2019ve left and they\u2019re kind of empty nesters. But they always joked that he was kind of my brother because at the end of the day there\u2019s only so much that one kid can do!<\/p>\n
\n<\/strong>For sure the thing that surprised me the most was the amount of sled work you do outside of sliding. I really like it, I know a lot of folks don\u2019t like that. I like working with my hands and I like working with tools and that was a part of the sport that I really fell in love with and I think that\u2019s one of the reasons I fell in love with the sport so much. Without that, I wonder if it would be as fulfilling sometimes. There\u2019s a difference between going on the line with a sled that you know is ready because you fixed it up versus something that even if you have professionals working with you that you aren\u2019t 100% sure if it\u2019s ready. It\u2019s a lot of long hours sometimes, and in the moment sometimes I wish we had a tech like in skiing to take care of our runners, but now that when I look at it, it makes doing well that much sweeter when you know that you put that much time in there. Not many people realize that we\u2019re kind of our own pit crew there until I tell them, and that\u2019s not a part of the sport that many people really care to think about, but it\u2019s there and I think it\u2019s great.<\/p>\n
\n<\/strong><\/em>Yup! I strung all of my own sticks and learned how to do that. I was pretty awful at it for a while until I figured it out. My first couple of sticks were like a tennis racquet, it was like a wall, but eventually you\u2019re able to figure out the nuances. That progression is one of the fulfilling things that I really like and that\u2019s another one! My first time working on a sled, you can put the runner on backwards, you can mess up when you\u2019re sanding, there\u2019s just so much stuff to learn initially and it\u2019s a lot of fun.<\/p>\n
\nWhen I left Mercer I\u2019d had a lot of injuries and I had decided that I was going to hang it up. I was kind of sick of being hurt, I\u2019d played lacrosse for a long time and I loved the sport, but I could tell I was a square peg in a round hole in a lot of ways. We did our conditioning and I was always dead last, I was great on the field but there were always small things about the sport\u2026I guess you can\u2019t love everything about everything, but I knew there were some little things that I always knew I wasn\u2019t going to be the best at. I just decide, d I was going to be a student. I had a lot of friends at Florida State, it\u2019s a lot cheaper with in-state tuition, I figured I was going to go there and get a degree and get the college experience and just go about my life. I realize college lacrosse, you can play pro lacrosse, but if you don\u2019t want to do that it becomes a dead end once college is over. I figured I could be done in three years or be done right away. I was still doing training with explosive lifting, sprinting, jumping, and it took a little bit but I realized \u201cAlright, I need to compete in something.\u201d That was the first time in my life that I wasn\u2019t competing in something and I realized how much of a gap that left. I just started shopping for a sport where my size and skills could come into use, and bobsled seemed like a pretty good choice. I figured \u201cAlright, let me look into it\u201d and it really was kind of fun being able to shop for a sport in doing something that I love.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.slidingonice.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/WilliamsonChurchPush.jpg\")
<\/a>
\n<\/strong>Nothing really specific, when we get to hotels it\u2019s basically whatever they\u2019ve got for food and hopefully it\u2019s nothing terrible that I don\u2019t want to eat. You\u2019re already a little nervous and anxious about it because you don\u2019t want to eat too much but you need something that your body can handle. When I\u2019m in Lake Placid is Simply Gourmet! If I can get some Simply Gourmet in me it\u2019s a great day, their sandwiches are incredible and it\u2019s the best sandwich in town so I go there whenever I can. I try not to go there too much because it\u2019s pretty expensive, but when you\u2019re getting ready for a race or you miss a meal at the cafeteria because of a race then it\u2019s definitely the best to swing by there. It\u2019s been a go-to for me, especially when I have a bad day and take an extra hard hit out of Curve 18 or something like that.<\/p>\n
\n<\/strong>I did a driving school on my first year. I was young\u2026I\u2019m still relatively young for the sport but I was young when I came in. They wanted me to try it out, I did Park City, which I realize isn\u2019t the Placid experience or going to some really hard driver\u2019s track or whatever, but it was still a lot of fun. I thought I just didn\u2019t have a lot of love for it. You have a lot of people, Frankie [Del Duca] is a great example: He\u2019s a driver by trade. He loves driving cars, he likes racing anything, Mario Kart, literally anything he can race he wants to drive it, so for him it was a natural progression. For me, it\u2019s not that I don\u2019t like it, I just don\u2019t know that I have that in me. I\u2019ll give it another shot, I\u2019m sure they\u2019ll ask me after this quad\u2026Shimer wasn\u2019t too happy with me when I told him I didn\u2019t want to keep driving! But I told them I\u2019m not counting it out, but I love braking. Honestly I love being in the back, which I know some people thing I\u2019m lying about, but I love this aspect of the sport.<\/p>\n
\n<\/strong><\/em>It\u2019s crazy to me how long some of those guys were around too. Kuske slid against Shimer, my coach, and then competed in the 2018 Olympics. It\u2019s crazy! Same with Lascelles, you look at the total of medals he\u2019s gotten and how long he competed for and I just think \u201cOh my God, that\u2019s incredible!\u201d I have that theory where being a career brakeman, while it\u2019s maybe not \u201ca lost art\u201d, it\u2019s definitely something that\u2019s important to have. Nothing against being new or coming in for a four year cycle, but when your program mostly has that\u2026it seems like the best teams in the world have guys like that who have been around for more than one quad. Even with our country some of our best teams were filled with more long-term brakemen in their second or third Olympics. I\u2019m not saying it\u2019s necessary, but it might be a little bit of a lost art in our country potentially, and I have no issue with doing that and I honestly kind of like it. I won\u2019t say for sure what\u2019s going to happen, but I think that\u2019s a cool role and a role I can see myself in for a long time, if they\u2019ll keep me around!<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.slidingonice.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/WilliamsonOlsenShady-scaled.jpg\")
<\/a>
\n<\/strong>I definitely look up to him, he\u2019s definitely one of the best to ever do it. If you\u2019re looking at a technical model for a push there\u2019s no better person to keep an eye on if you\u2019re learning to see what a great push looks like. It\u2019s funny, I\u2019ve looked up to him a lot but I didn\u2019t really know the guy, I was coming in 2017 and I got to race in Igls on a four-man team with Elana Meyers-Taylor\u2026that whole trip was funny. I got called up on a Friday, I get in the sled for four-man for Sunday, I get one run down the track and then I leave and am back in the USA on Monday. I didn\u2019t even do official training, just literally fly out there, one run, and fly back! It was a crazy experience!<\/p>\n
\n<\/strong>There\u2019s been a lot of good ones, I\u2019ve got a lot of good teammates, we\u2019ve had a good number of really great guys in our program. I think honestly, it\u2019s going to be my first World Cup medal in Igls with Hunter. It was the first medal in Europe for the United States\u2019 men in a while. It was a great day, Igls is a fun track, we\u2019d pushed really well, and we\u2019d been rolling for a few weeks. Everything was just going really well and I think that\u2019s how a great performance happens. It was a great day for everyone and it was just a high point in my career.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.slidingonice.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/WilliamsonIglsPodium.jpg\")
<\/a>
\nThere\u2019s a lot of hard parts of bobsled, too! Honestly, I think it\u2019s an easy one with Altenberg. Both times I\u2019ve been there we\u2019ve crashed in the race. Jimmy Reed and I have both been in the sled both times so we seem to think we may have a curse on us! But we hope we can break that this year going back to Altenberg. Hunter and Codie are both obviously super capable of making that happen, but sometimes it\u2019s one of those things that happens: You miss that flag coming out, you get a fourth pressure and the next thing you know you\u2019re on your head! It\u2019s part of the sport though, and something that obviously gives us something to go back and conquer next time. We know that both Hunter and Codie have that drive to do well there and that\u2019s what gives us that drive as brakemen to get back on that horse and want to jump into that again.<\/p>\n
\nTo\u00a0 be honest I never would have left the country if it wasn\u2019t for bobsled! My family didn\u2019t travel much outside of the country, we\u2019d go on a ski trip to Colorado when I was young and that was maybe the extent of it, but I wouldn\u2019t really go very far. Even now, once I got into the sport, even though I travel a lot it\u2019s not like I\u2019m taking a lot of vacations. You kind of just get home after the season and lay on the couch for a couple of weeks until you have to start training again. It\u2019s not like you have this whole bunch of time for vacation. So this might sound lame, but my favorite place in the world is New Smyrna Beach over in Florida. It might not be very far from me, it\u2019s about 30 minutes from my house, but it\u2019s my favorite place on the planet. It\u2019s a tiny little beach town, and if there\u2019s one place I could pick to live in the world it would be there. Nothing beats it. That area of Florida\u2026I might be biased and I know it\u2019s not a super cool answer\u2026but if anyone gets a chance you have to just get there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"