Bobsledders fired by ‘power of the people’
Crowdfunded British duo of Mica Mcneill and Mica Moore have real chance of medal today
The infectious joy exuded by Mica Mcneill and Mica Moore, Britain’s crowdfunded bobsleigh duo, could not be more starkly at odds with the rancour and mud-slinging that brought them here.
Just five months ago, the two learnt that money for the women’s team would be scrapped after financial miscalculations at their national governing body led to a £50,000 overspend. Today, they will propel themselves down their final Olympic runs with a realistic chance of a medal.
As funding oversights go, the decision by the British Bobsleigh and Skeleton Association to leave the two Micas to fend for themselves counts as one of the most egregious. The pair had proven their worth in global competition, with Mcneill winning gold at the world junior championships last year, and had difficulty reconciling their treatment with the continued support for three British men’s crews. While their grievances grew, allegations of bullying, sexism and racism became the subject of an independent review.
Courtesy of what Mcneill described as “power of the people”, she and her partner reached their online funding target of £30,000 in little over a week, reciprocating such strong public faith by moving to sixth in the standings with two runs left, just 0.46 seconds behind German leaders Mariama Jamanka and Lisa Buckwitz.
“We have a few little things to tidy up on our drive,” said Mcneill. “Being new to this track, we are still learning. But we are so happy just to be here and that is flowing through to our performance.”
On a night when British speed skating, bankrolled to the tune of £4.8 million over the last four-year Olympic cycle, let slip its last medal hope with a third straight failure for Elise Christie, the move to let Mcneill and Moore scrape together most of their money by public goodwill seemed, frankly, absurd.
The tantalising possibility today is that this most resilient of pairings could grasp the first medals by British women’s bobsledders in 94 years.
For Nigeria’s Seun Adigun and Akuoma Omeoga, alas, such an idea is rather more remote. While they created history as the African nation’s first Winter Olympic representatives, their aggregate time of 1 min 44.70 sec left them dead last in the 20-strong field.
“In this sport, the biggest teacher is time,” acknowledged Adigun, a bobsleigh neophyte who competed in the 100 metres hurdles at London 2012. “We want to set the groundwork for the future, for the country of Nigeria and the continent of Africa.”
A similar motivation fuels the Jamaican double act of Jazmine Fenlator-victorian and Carrie Russell, who announced themselves yesterday as the island’s first female competitors at the Winter Olympics, 30 years after their male forebears’ exploits in Calgary inspired the film Cool Runnings. The road, however, has been littered with obstacles.
Only last week, their coach Sandra Kiriasis quit, threatening to take the sled with her – a crisis only averted when the beer company Red Stripe offered via Twitter to pay £5,000 for a replacement.
Fenlator-victorian piloted the team to a highly creditable 18th. As she put it: “This is about the pride we feel in representing Jamaica.”