Holcomb’s bobsled gold medal team inducted into Olympic Hall of Fame

Steve Holcomb (L) with his bobsled teammates. Photo: Carl Roepke

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – The United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee announced on Tuesday the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Hall of Fame, Class of 2025, including the 2010 Four-Man Bobsled Team comprised of Steven Holcomb, Justin Olsen, Steve Mesler, and Curt Tomasevicz. 

Team Night Train, the 2010 U.S. four-man bobsled team, made history at the Olympic Winter Games Vancouver 2010 by winning gold and ending a 62-year drought in the event, Team USA’s first Olympic title since 1948. 

Watch and listen as Park City’s Carl Roepke announces the gold medal run.

Developed over nearly a decade of dedicated research and engineering, the Night Train was a state-of-the-art machine utilizing NASCAR-inspired technology. 

The 2010 gold medal marked a defining moment in American Olympic history. Racing against the heavily favored, five-time Olympic champion German team, the Americans won by just 0.38 seconds, a razor-thin margin that underscored both the physical power of the team and the technical brilliance of the sled.

They were later featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated, marking only the second time bobsledding appeared on the magazine’s cover. The four were named Team USA’s Team of the Year in both 2009 and 2010, the first to earn the honor in back-to-back years.

Throughout their journey, the team supported pilot Holcomb as he battled and overcame a degenerative eye disease first diagnosed in 2002. The procedure he would go through, C3-R, would eventually be renamed to Holcomb C3-R, marking the first time a medical procedure was named after an Olympic athlete.  

Holcomb attended Park City High School and competed on the Park City Alpine Ski Team before switching sports to bobsledding on his home track at the Utah Olympic Park. Following his death in the spring of 2017 in Lake Placid at the Olympic Training Center, the UOP is where his funeral was held attended by a whose-who of his acquaintances in the Olympic orbit. After the ceremony, the hundreds of friends and family took a Track Walk down the un-iced bobsled track. 

“Recognizing the team as worthy of induction into the Hall of Fame is an incredible honor. It is, without a doubt, a reflection of so many people that contributed to helping the team and helping each of us individually. Coaches, trainers, staff, sled techs, etc. all played a crucial role in our success. Ultimately, we believed in each other and had faith that giving our absolute best would lead us to the top of the podium,” shared current USA Bobsled athletic director Tomasevicz.

Additionally, included in the USOPC list is Bode Miller (Olympian: alpine skiing – 1998, 2002, 2006, 2010, 2014). Miller claimed a gold medal in the alpine combined at the Olympic Winter Games Vancouver 2010 and earned three medals at the same Olympic Winter Games, leading Team USA to a record eight alpine medals. Miller is the only U.S. male skier to win world cup races in all five events—downhill, super-G, giant slalom, slalom and combined—accumulating 33 victories with his six Olympic medals before retiring in 2017. In 2018, he joined NBC as an alpine skiing analyst for the Olympic Games, sharing his expertise with a global audience. 

The inductees also include Steve Cash (sled hockey), Gabby Douglas (artistic gymnastics), Anita DeFrantz (legend: rowing), Allyson Felix (track and field), Susan Hagel (Para archery, Para track and field, wheelchair basketball), Flo Hyman (legend: indoor volleyball), Kerri Walsh Jennings (beach volleyball), Mike Krzyzewski (coach: basketball), Phil Knight (special contributor: Nike founder), Marla Runyan (Para track and field), Serena Williams (tennis), and the2004 Women’s Wheelchair Basketball Team.  

They will be honored and inducted in a special ceremony held July 12 in Colorado Springs.