Victor Emery (bobsledder)

Victor ("Vic") Emery (born June 28, 1933 in Montreal ) is a former Canadian bobsleigh pilot . He was active in the 1960s and was Olympic champion and world champion in the four-man bobsleigh. His older brother John Emery was also a bobsledder.

Career

In 1956 Emery interrupted his skiing vacation in Switzerland to watch the Olympic Games in Cortina d'Ampezzo as a spectator . He was so enthusiastic about the bobsleigh races that he wanted to practice the sport himself. The following year he founded the Laurentian Bobsleigh Association with his brother John . In 1959, the Emerys first took part in world championships, with the Italian bobsleigh driver Eugenio Monti acting as their mentor. The training conditions were extremely unfavorable: the Canadian Olympic Committee refused any support, so that the Canadians had to practice pushing in sports halls and rarely had the opportunity to practice runs on the bobsleigh track in Lake Placid .

Before the Olympic Winter Games in 1964 , the Austrians and Italians were big favorites. The Canadian four-man bobsleigh team, consisting of the Emery brothers, Peter Kirby and Douglas Anakin , was only able to train four times on the Igls Olympic bobsleigh track , in contrast to numerous competitors who had arrived weeks earlier. Completely surprisingly, the Canadians undercut the track record in the first run, held their ground at the top and won the gold medal. Emery's recipe for success was that when he pushed his pushers, he put less emphasis on their weight and more on their athletic ability. Until then it had been customary to achieve the necessary speed through as much mass as possible; Emery, on the other hand, relied on a quick start and thus contributed significantly to the development of modern bobsleigh. Together with Kirby, he finished fourth in the two-man bobsleigh.

John Emery and Douglas Anakin left the team and were replaced by Gerald Presley and Michael Young . At the World Championships in St. Moritz in 1965 , the Canadian four was again the fastest. In addition, Emery and Young won the bronze medal in the two-man bobsleigh.

Emery studied at the University of Western Ontario and Harvard University , where he received an MBA . After his sports career ended, he worked as a hotel manager and settled in the British capital, London . He also commented on the Olympic bobsleigh races from 1976 for Canadian television.

Web links

• Victor Emery in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )
• Entry into Canada's Sports Hall of Fame
• Vic Emery bobsled , histori.ca