Hurdles medallist Lopes-Schliep trains for bobsled crew

Priscilla Lopes-Schliep bundled her daughters into her running stroller one morning this week at a track near her home in Nebraska. Gripping the handles, she leaned into the stroller, and drove, head down, knees up, hamstrings straining, until the threesome was sailing down the track at high speed. Canada’s Olympic hurdles medallist was getting her muscles accustomed to her new sport — as the bobsled brakeman for two-time Olympic champion Kaillie Humphries.

“They’re yelling ‘WEEEEE! Faster mommy, faster!” Lopes-Schliep said, then laughed at how they must have looked.

If all goes well, the Whitby, Ont., native will make her international bobsled debut at a World Cup in Park City, Utah, shortly after Christmas. It will be the realization of a partnership Humphries envisioned back in 2008 when she spotted Lopes-Schliep training in Arizona.

“What I would absolutely love is for her to be in my sled the Olympic year (2018),” said Humphries.

Lopes-Schliep, who won an Olympic bronze medal in 2008 in Beijing, has been to Calgary twice to train with Humphries. She hasn’t competed in track since she hit a hurdle at the 2012 London Olympic trials and didn’t make the team. She then took time off to have her second daughter Jaslene, who’s now two, in the summer of 2013. Lopes-Schliep, 33, is also mom of four-year-old Nataliya.

But she’s remained fit and strong. “I’ve been running, lifting. Everything I was doing before, the 100s, 200s, circuits.”

Still, she thought long and hard before committing to the pursuit of another Olympic medal, in an entirely different sport.

Bobsled has seen numerous athletes make the transition from power sports, including American NFL star Herschel Walker, Canadian sprinter Glenroy Gilbert and former CFL running back Jesse Lumsden.