Peter Kirby

Peter Murray Kirby (born December 17, 1931 in Montreal ) is a former Canadian bobsleigh driver . He was active in the 1960s and was Olympic champion and world champion in the four-man bobsleigh.

Career

Kirby was initially an above-average ski racer. He won the Canadian Junior Championship in 1953, was a member of the Canadian national team in 1954 and led the Dartmouth College ski team in 1956 . He then switched to bobsleigh. 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 Victor Emery , John Emery , Douglas Anakin and Peter Kirby, was only able to train four times on the Olympic bobsleigh track in Igls , in contrast to numerous competitors who had arrived weeks before. Completely surprisingly, the Canadians undercut the track record in the first run, held their ground at the top and won the gold medal. In the two-man bobsleigh, Victor Emery and Peter Kirby finished fourth. At the 1965 World Championships in St. Moritz , the Canadian four-man with Kirby as the brakeman was again the fastest.

After retiring from elite sport, Kirby worked as a geologist and later became a businessman.

Web links

• Peter Kirby in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )
• Entry into Canada's Sports Hall of Fame