THE BRAKEMAN: Recent Episodes
The Brakeman
We sat down with Olympic Gold Medallist and CEO of Classroom Champions, Steve Mesler, to talk all things pre, during and post Olympic success. He delves into what it took to win Gold, what life after sport looked like for him and signs off with a touching tribute of the late Steve Holcomb. This is definitely not one to miss.
We sat down to talk to Jimmy Reed (USA) and Sam Blanchet (GB) about their return from major injury and their own experiences with adversity and the need to display resilience to keep attacking their goals. By pure luck (rather than strategic interview setup), it turned out they were also both the 'spare athlete' for their respective nations at the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics. They dive into what that meant to them and how making Beijing 2022 is an important milestone in their careers to put to bed their unusual experience as the 'Olympic Alternate'.
Bobsleigh as a sport has many successful black and mixed race athletes. Whilst the 'Black Lives' conversation has been broached in other sports, we felt that it wasn't getting much airtime in the winter community.
So in the proactive spirit of The Brakeman platform, we sought to do this ourselves. We sat down with World Champion brakewoman Lauren Gibbs (USA), brakewoman-turned-pilot Cynthia Appiah (CAN), former UK 100m record holder Montell Douglas (GBR), and former GB Bobsledder-turned-physio Jimmy Hedger (GBR) to get their perspectives on the latest issues being discussed globally and their own stories and experiences.