Mar 23, 2022
Emily Bradley poses at the top of the Olympic bobsled run in Lake Placid. (Provided photo — Jordan Craig)
LAKE PLACID — Emily Bradley was watching the Olympic monobob competition when she first started asking her father about getting into the sport.
Seeing that Bradley, 14, had a clear passion and willingness to try the sport of bobsled, her father, Michael Bradley, a former bobsledder himself, found a training camp in Lake Placid.
“She was watching Elana (Meyers Taylor), I used to race with Elana back when she was a brakeman,” Michael Bradley said. “So I said ‘just watch her. Watch how focused she is.’ She’s been in the sport for so long. I think she was inspired just by seeing both Kaillie (Humphries) and Elana both pushing and being women and monobob being in the Olympics for the first time.”
Emily and her father traveled from their hometown of Sacramento, California to slide on the Olympic bobsled run at the Olympic Sports Complex at Mount Van Hoevenberg.
“I just made some phone calls and the next thing I knew, we were out here,” Michael Bradley said. “I thought this would be a great opportunity because this was my home track.
Emily Bradley slides down the track at the Olympic bobsled run in Lake Placid. (Provided photo — Jordan Craig)
“Now, it’s her home track, where she can claim where she learned how to drive a bobsled. It’s pretty special for us,” he added.
While in Lake Placid, Emily spent time with Bryan Berghorn, who got his start in the junior bobsled program in Lake Placid in 1998. Berghorn helped show her driving techniques, while her father gave her tips about things he remembered.
By the end of the training session, Emily did something that no one her age has ever done before — she drove a bobsled off the top of the track in Lake Placid.
“I didn’t think she would be driving off the top of Lake Placid because this is one of the most difficult tracks in the world,” Michael Bradley said. “It usually takes a little while to work up to that. She made it up there and now has the record of being the youngest athlete to ever drive a bobsled from the top.”
Emily said she was really scared going into her first run down the track.
“Getting up there I had so many nerves,” Emily Bradley said. “I worked my way up and got to the top and it’s so fun. It feels so amazing. You feel like you are flying, you feel on top of the world.
“Getting down there and accomplishing. Making it down to the finish, it feels amazing,” she added. “You’re like ‘Oh my gosh, I just did that’ and it’s a really amazing feeling. It’s an amazing experience and I just love it.”
“It’s actually terrifying to watch your daughter race down an ice shoot, now I feel for my mom, who used to watch,” Michael Bradley said. “It’s pretty terrifying. When we’re talking about it and she’s not actually going down the track, I’m fine, but when she gets on that sled it’s gut-wrenching until she crosses the finish line.”
Despite being nervous about going down the bobsled track, Emily thoroughly enjoyed her time on the track and she, along with her father, hope to inspire others to try bobsledding.
“It’s one of those things that we were kind of analyzing like the barriers that are being broken, not only is she the youngest, but she’s a female,” Michael Bradley said. “It kind of opens the door for youth athletes to kind of show them that they can.
“If you want to learn how to do this, you can do it. When we first got out here I wasn’t sure because bobsled is kind of a unique sport because you aren’t sure if someone is going to like it or anything like that,” he added. “She kind of just took to it and knocked those barriers down. I think she now has gained a lot of confidence for herself but hopefully can instill that in young athletes that are thinking about getting into a sliding sport.”
While it was Emily’s first time going down the track from the top of the bobsled, she hopes it won’t be her last.
Emily hopes to make it on the U.S Youth Olympic bobsled team for the 2024 Winter Youth Olympics in Gangwon, South Korea. The Youth Olympics will hold sliding events at the 2018 Olympic sliding track in Pyeongchang.
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