Former Idaho sprinter attempts to bring home Olympic gold … in bobsledding
United States Bobsled Team | Courtesy
University of Idaho alumnus Sam Michener and United States Olympic bobsled teammates get momentum before boarding their sled in a competition heat. Michener is an ex-Idaho sprinter and the Gresham, Ore., native finished No. 8 at the 2012 U.S. bobsledding Push Championships and will need to place within the top 12 to qualify for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.
Last summer in London, University of Idaho graduate Kristin Armstrong took home a gold medal in cycling — a sport she didn’t participate in until leaving the school.
Next winter, another Idaho graduate will attempt to do the same.
Sam Michener graduated from Idaho in 2011 after a full career in track and field that saw him earn a championship in the 100-meter relay in 2009 and a first team all-conference selection in the 100-meter in 2010.
At the time, Michener didn’t think bobsledding was where his athletic career would take him.
He spent his final year at Idaho after completing his eligibility as an assistant coach to Wayne Phipps during the 2011-12 athletic year. Michener was recruited to Idaho by Phipps out of Sam Barlow High School in Gresham, Ore., in 2006 and spent his entire athletic career running sprints as a Vandal.
“Casually, bobsled came in to the conversation. I was like, ‘yeah, why not give it a try sometime.’ It was just jokingly and in passing,” Michener said. “I ended up sending my resume online … it was just a random shot in the dark, I didn’t expect much out of it. Now it’s what I do for a living.”
Currently residing and training in Lake Placid, New York, he placed No. 8 overall in the 2012 U.S. bobsledding Push Championships and he will look to secure a place in the 2014 Winter Olympic games in Sochi, Russia.
All Michener has to do is maintain his place in the top 12 and he will have his ticket to Russia punched — something he’s very confident he’ll be able to do since his No. 8 placing was as a rookie.
“Next season I hope to do a lot better than that. I’ll be a lot more experienced with specific bobsled training, not just carrying my track and field to bobsled,” he said. “Now I’m very much a bobsledder. And so I expect to do a lot better than (No. 8).”
The sport is team oriented, with Michener’s role as a brakeman responsible for the speed of the sled as it heads down the track. There is also a pilot, responsible for navigating the sled around the varying turns on the track.
Michener said he started to hit the books harder and eventually got accepted and enrolled into a nuclear medicine program at a school in South Dakota. He spent part of the 2012 fall semester there before learning he was accepted into the Olympic bobsledding program.
“It was a pretty tough decision. I could have gone all in, but I had no idea if I really wanted to bobsled,” he said. “Basically most of my friends and family had convinced me to go bobsled. (They told me) ‘hopefully you won’t get dumber but when you get older but you’ll certainly get slower’, so hopefully I can go back to school.”
The summer months for him will be going back and forth from his hometown in Gresham to Lake Placid for a multitude of training camps before the combine, which will be held in October. He hasn’t been back to Moscow since June 2012, but said he is still very invested in the track and field program, keeping up with results and texting guys when he can.
“I’m always bugging those athlete, figuring out what’s going on, you’re always interested in what they’re doing,” he said. “Once you’re a Vandal track and field athlete, you’re always a Vandal track and field athlete.”
Sean Kramer can be reached at [email protected]