Quitting Won’t Ease the Strain for Shimer

It was difficult to tell which was causing Brian Shimer, the four-time Olympian and driver of U.S. I, more discomfort:

His ongoing hamstring strain or his 12th-place performance in Saturday’s first two heats of two-man bobsled.

The combination, concluded Shimer, left him with “absolutely no chance” of rallying for a medal in Sunday’s final two heats.

It also had him thinking that the prudent course would be to withdraw from the final two heats and save the hamstring for next weekend’s four-man event in which the United States is a legitimate medal contender and in which the strain on his hamstring would be eased by those three other pushers at the start.

“To come back and fight for a top-10 finish [in the two-man] is not something I’m particularly thrilled about,” he said immediately after Saturday’s two heats. “We’re here to win; we’re here to take home a medal, and it looks like our only chance now is going to be in the four-man, where I’m only 25% of the [starting] load.

“The hamstring [which bothered him throughout the 1997-98 World Cup season] has felt better this week than it has in a long time, and I don’t want to do anything to hurt the team. I’m real anxious to get in the four-man.”

The temptation didn’t last. Shimer, who may be winding up his career in these Olympics, later told Coach Steve Maiorca he would give it a go in the final two heats.

Perhaps he didn’t want to disappoint his two-man pusher and brakeman, Garrett Hines.

Perhaps, said a U.S. official, he felt he could save a little face in the final two heats. A little is probably all there will be.

While four-man is considered Shimer’s stronger event because of the broader push help the 35-year-old gets at the start, the U.S. had also been touting their new Bo-Dyn sleds as the fastest two-man sleds in the world.

However, neither Shimer nor Jim Herberich, the driver of U.S. II, cracked the top 10. Herberich was 11th, and both he and Shimer were more than eight-tenths of a second behind the leader, Italy’s Guenther Huber, who led Canada’s Pierre Lueders by only four-thousandths of a second.

Shimer and Herberich expressed disappointment with their performances, acknowledged they made mistakes and said the sleds didn’t generate the anticipated speed on an afternoon of rain, snow and bitter cold.

“I’ll go home tonight scratching my head,” Harvard graduate Herberich said about the missing speed.

The U.S. has not won a bobsled medal in 42 years. The U.S. luge team ended a 34-year medal drought Friday, but there was no spinoff for Shimer and Herberich on the same track.

The Saturday disappointment was nothing new for Shimer. He has had wide success on the world stage but a star-crossed Olympic career.

He failed to medal in the two-man at Albertville in 1992 when he was forced to employ the inexperienced Herschel Walker as pusher. He was the first bobsled driver ever disqualified from the Winter Games at Lillehammer, Norway, in 1994 when the runners on his four-man sled were heated beyond specifications by his support staff.

This year, shortly before the Games, word leaked that he had tested positive for high levels of testosterone. He ultimately was cleared but felt his reputation had been irreparably damaged by an attempt to embarrass him.

Through it all, Shimer and teammates always had to beg, borrow and buy competitors’ equipment until NASCAR driver Geoff Bodine funded and helped engineer an American-made product.

The two top teams left 37 rivals in their wake and should produce a sizzling finale.

Huber won a bronze at Lillehammer when Gustav Weder of Switzerland won his second consecutive gold. Weder subsequently retired, creating an opening at the top. Lueders, who has dominated the World Cup in two-man since his 1992 debut, is trying to redeem a disappointing performance at Lillehammer when he was seventh in two-man and 12th in four-man.

“I have nothing to prove to these people,” the confident Canadian said. “I race against them all and beat them in World Cup.

“I’ve stolen the World Cup title twice from Huber, and I’m sure he has that on his mind.

“I like to be a thief sometimes.”