International bobsled and skeleton races conclude at UOP

Top 6 finishers with USA in 1st and 2nd, at the Utah Olympic Park's North American Cup Bobsled and Skeleton Races. Photo: Blake Williams

PARK CITY, Utah — The Utah Olympic park hosted North America’s Cup bobsled and skeleton races last week, with athletes representing 17 nations including the USA, Canada, Israel, Jamaica, Thailand, Chinese Taipei, Brazil and Great Britain.

The International Bobsled Skeleton Federation (IBSF) has recently taken special interest in broadening global competition opportunities and added a Pan American Championships to the NAC schedule, which has significantly increased participation from the so called “small nations.”

The final event of the week-and-a-half-long race was the 4-man race, which is held at the end due to the fact that 4-person bobsleds can carve up the ice so deeply. It was won by Team USA’s Kristopher Horn, Hakeem Abdul-Saboor, Hunter Powel, and Adrian Adams with a top finish time of 47.72 seconds, reaching 84.5 miles per hour. In second place was USA’s Goeffrey Gadbois, Collin Storms, Bryce Cheek, and Boone Neiderhofer coming accross the line nine hundredths of a second behind. Third went to Brazil, just .14 back by athletes Edison Luques Bindilatti, Rafael Souza De Silva, Jeronimo Gilson Vianna, and Edson Ricardo Martins.

The Brasilian team’s pilot, Bindilatti, is hoping to qualify for his sixth Olympic Games in 2026 and to do so will need, like all athletes, to race in five races on three tracks over two years. 

“Park City holds a special place in my heart as it was where I got to compete in my first Olympics in 2002,” he told TownLift.

Bindilatti pointed to a yellow bobsled within the line of several on the dock area of the track, “Our newest sled is nice, it’s relatively newer than the famous Flying Banana, which the team here from Thailand is using.” The bright yellow sled will now remain at the UOP for nations to be able to use and help develop 4-man drivers.

With the podium finish, Brazill now leads the NAC 4-man standings, coming off second and third place finishes in the season-openers in Whistler, B.C.

Salt Lake City teenage twin brothers Noah and Baden Park placed fifth and seventh respectively in their age-group in Skeleton. They both competed in The 2024 Youth Olympic Games in S. Korea.

LoLo Jones, three-time Summer and Winter USA Olympian raced as a brakewoman in the two-woman sled with her pilot teammate Lauren Brzozowski. The duo placed just off the podium this weekend in fourth, the same result as her London 2012 hurdles running race. In a post on Instagram, Jones pointed out that she and her pilot delivered the fastest overall push of the competition – a win in her first competition back in bobsled.

Former employee of the Utah Olympic Park, IBSF, and retired USA bobsledder, Pat Brown, a current Kamas resident, and coach of the Jamaican team since the ’80s, Pat Brown was glad to be back on home soil. “It’s always great to have races going on here in Park City,” he said.

Brown’s son has worked at the UOP Track as well. “The ice conditions are just how we like it, fast and predictably consistent.” Jamaica’s bobsled teams are in town, but when asked about their skeleton team, the manager explained the challenges emerging nations face in consistently participating in such circuits. Due to limited funding, Jamaica is currently in a financial rebuilding phase for its skeleton squad, making it impossible to bring teams for both bobsled and skeleton this season. These fluctuations in participation are common for non-European nations that rely on the IOC’s inclusion initiatives, which highlights financial disparities in winter sports, he said.

New drivers, big crashes

For some sliders, this was their first international race and that was illustrated in at least three spectacular, scary, and shocking crashes. Everybody walked away each time though thanks to the engineering of the track, the functionality of the sleds and the top-line training of athletes, announcers, track crew, officials, volunteers and Park Patrol.  

A dozen spectators showed up to watch the action trackside, cheer on friends and family, and get a glimpse of what’s to come when Park City hosts to the 2034 Olympic Games.