Shimer’s Drive to Medal Comes Up Short Again

NAGANO, Japan —  How to measure two-hundredths of a second?

Maybe by the bounce of Brian Shimer’s helmet after he hurled it off the bottom of his bobsled.

Maybe by the crack of his voice and the tears that the four-time Olympian kept fighting as he reflected on his Olympic frustrations and wondered how his speed had suddenly evaporated over the bottom portion of what appeared to be a medal-winning run in the third and final heat of the four-man competition Saturday.

“Now I know what Brent Rushlaw went through in ‘88,” Shimer said. “You never know how much it hurts until it happens to you.”

Brent Rushlaw?

Shimer was there as a pusher on another team in his first Olympics when Rushlaw missed--by two-hundredths of a second--winning a bronze for the United States in four-man.

Before Saturday, when Shimer also finished a wrenching two-hundredths away, that was as close as the U.S. had gotten to a bobsled medal since winning a bronze in 1956.

Now the drought is destined to extend until 2002, and the frustration for Shimer and colleagues was compounded by the fact that the two sleds that finished in a third-place tie, just that half-blink ahead of him, aren’t exactly world powers in sledding.

Great Britain last won a bobsled medal in 1964, which may explain why paratrooper Sean Olsson, the driver, was swigging champagne with his teammates almost as soon as they got out of the sled.

France had never won a bobsled medal, which may explain why its jubilant Italian coach, Ivo Ferriani, stripped down to his underwear--black briefs--and, oblivious to the sub-freezing cold, pranced in front of huddled and bundled reporters as driver Bruno Mingeon exulted in front of the French TV cameras.

Christoph Langen, a successor to legendary German driver Wolfgang Hoppe, won the gold with a cumulative time of 2 minutes 39.41 seconds.

Marcel Rohner, driving Switzerland I, finished second at 2:40.01.

Olsson and Mingeon were five-hundredths of a second behind Rohner, with the disbelieving Shimer an additional two-hundredths back.

“When we got to the bottom [after the third run] I told myself, ‘Hey, that was a pretty good trip,’ ” Shimer said.

“We had a couple taps [against the wall] but nothing major. The time just wasn’t there. I was shocked when I saw it.”

The second of Friday’s two runs had been canceled by rain, reducing the four-heat race to three, the final two on Saturday.

Shimer, in USA I; Olsson, in Great Britain I, and Christian Reich, driving Switzerland II, were tied for third before the final heat, with France I eight-hundredths of a second behind.

Of that group, France was first down the hill in a blitzing 53.63 seconds. Swiss II had a tough trip, clocking 53.93 to fall out of the medal race. Great Britain forged a tie with France by clocking 53.71. That left it to Shimer, whose team produced the fastest start of the heat and who had the Bo-Dyn sled producing the fastest splits--he was nine-hundredths ahead of the French splits entering the bottom portion--only to finish at 53.73, only the fourth-fastest run.

Shimer shook his head and said his first reaction was that somebody had to have hit the brakes--bobsleds do have brakes--on one of the final curves, but that is unlikely.

He called it his most disappointing Olympic experience.

“You go off the top of the hill with that kind of start, there’s no doubt we should have won a medal,” he said. “I don’t know why we were losing a tenth or two-tenths the last split in every run. I know I had some mistakes, but everybody else did as well. It’s a very difficult track on which to be consistent, but why it cost us so much, I don’t know. Every guy did their job. It’s nobody’s fault but mine.”

The driver turned in a stand-up performance in the aftermath, patiently answering questions, taking the blame. Pusher Chip Minton, who had been predicting that his team would kick some European rears, was not to be found after the Europeans kicked his. One U.S. official, while claiming he couldn’t be certain, said Minton may have actually sat up before the finish in the second heat, which could have cost the team several tenths. The pushers and brakeman stay crouched behind the driver to aid wind flow.

“You can’t make a mistake like that,” the official said.

Shimer, 35, said he would deal with his disappointment by “digging a hole and crawling in for a few days.”

From the appointment of inexperienced Herschel Walker as his pusher in two-man in 1992 to the 1994 disqualification from four-man for overheated runners to this year’s reputation-damaging leak of a positive testosterone test of which he was cleared to the frustration of Saturday, Shimer would definitely seem snake-bit in the Olympics.

“I don’t think it’s a matter of being snake-bit,” he said. “It just seems like every Olympic year there’s some kind of story, some kind of distraction. I’ve been through them all. I was hoping we could come in, win a medal and lift the cloud, make everyone happy, and put it behind us, but there’s no excuse. We were on the medal stand here twice last year [in World Cup races]. It went well for us that weekend, but not this weekend. Our timing has been bad.”

Shimer said he thought about all the pressure and anxiety and frustrations in the start house before that final run and said to himself, “Who in their right mind would put themselves through this? On the other hand, this is what I live for. I wouldn’t want it any other way. Who wouldn’t want to be here, representing their country? I take a lot of pride in that.”

So, he intends to keep driving, taking a year at a time, he said, as long as he remains one of the world’s best.

“I’ll take the pain,” he said. “It’s something I’ll never forget. It’ll be a good story, right? Tell my kids, when I have kids, ‘Hey, Dad missed a medal by two-hundredths,’ but who knows? I also might be telling them, ‘Hey, Dad finally did it in 2002.’ ”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

MEDALISTS

Bobsled

FOUR-MAN

Gold: Germany

Silver: Switzerland

Bronze: Britain

Bronze: Finland