Irish girls get their first action

AFTER AN eventful build-up to their Winter Olympics, during which their qualification for the bobsleigh event in Vancouver was challenged by Australia, Aoife Hoey and Claire Bergin finally see competitive action tonight in the first two heats of the competition at the Whistler track.

The pair, the first Irish women to qualify for the bobsleigh at an Olympics, had an anxious wait before the Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled that both they and the Australians should be allowed compete in Vancouver, CAS later dismissing another challenge to Ireland’s place by Brazil.

Twenty-one teams, then, are scheduled to take part in the women’s competition, which made its Olympic debut at the 2002 Salt Lake Games. Twelve nations are represented – Germany (four teams), the United States (three), Britain, Canada, Russia and Switzerland (two each), the Netherlands, Italy, Japan and Romania, like Ireland and Australia, with one qualified team each.

Both Irish women come from athletics backgrounds, Hoey (26), at 6ft 4in the tallest female competitor at the Games, a former national triple jump champion, and Bergin (25) a sprinter who represented Ireland in the 400 metres relay at the European Indoor Championships last year.

Bergin, an accountancy student from Dublin, only took up the sport in 2008 but Hoey, a development officer with Athletics Ireland who hails from Portarlington, followed her sister Siobhán (the Ireland team’s Chef de Mission in Vancouver) in to bobsleighing a decade ago. Hoey, ranked 28th in the world, is the team’s pilot, with Bergin the brakewoman and Leona Byrne her alternate.

The United States won the first women’s bobsleigh Olympic gold but lost out to Germany in Turin, Sandra Kiriasis returning to Canada, with a new partner, to defend her title.

Concerns have been expressed about the safety of the Whistler track, where Britain’s two-man team was the latest to crash in their heats on Sunday. American Shauna Rohbock, a silver medallist four years ago, described it as “stupid fast” but while Hoey and Bergin reached speeds of 144kmh in training, their fastest ever, both declared themselves to be happy with, if respectful of, the track.

Bobsleigh schedule (women’s): Tomorrow – Heat one (5pm; 1am Irish time); Heat two (6.15pm; 2.10am Irish time); Wednesday – Heat three (5pm; 1am Irish time); Heat four, medal event (6.10pm; 2.10am Irish time).