Sledding for success: Cody Sorensen’s got his eye on Sochi

By Emanuela Campanella

Cody Sorensen is training hard with one goal in mind: a spot on the Canadian bobsled team in the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia.

“My nine to five is training, recovery, massage therapy and nutrition,” the Ottawa native says.

“It’s not too many people who get to wear the red and white colours and get to represent their country,” he says. “That’s what it’s all about.”

A typical day of training for Sorenson consists of a three-hour workout, which he says includes a warm up, sprinting and stretching. He then lifts weights for a couple of hours and finishes up with an hour of massage therapy. Sorensen says that he and his team members also do two runs on the bobsled most nights.

“We’re making sure our pushes are fast and our bodies are feeling good,” he says. “It’s a full-time game.”

Sorensen is currently gearing up for the 2013-2014 Bobsleigh World Cup tournament with team members Chris Spring, Jesse Lumsden and Ben Coakwell. The two-month competition opened in Calgary on Nov. 24, and the first four-man bobsleigh race will take place there on Saturday.

The Bobsleigh World Cup is a preliminary series of races to determine who will go on to compete at the upcoming 2014 Winter Games. The competition continues in the United States, Switzerland, Austria before it concludes Jan. 26, 2014 in Königssee, Germany.

This is Sorensen’s sixth bobsled season. He is a four-time Bobsleigh World Cup medallist and currently ranks fifth internationally in four-man bobsleigh.

When he is not competing or on the road, you can find Sorensen in Calgary, where he has been training intensively for several months.

Sorensen describes racing at high speeds as a unique and exciting experience and says he strives to “feel the track.”

“You almost have a sixth sense on a sled,” he says.

Sorensen says he and his teammates like to sing a chant borrowed from the movie Gladiator to get their blood pumping before a race.

“It serves as a mental trigger to get us focused on the run,” Sorensen says.

Sorensen and his teammates visited Sochi in February 2012 to get an idea what kind of tracks they can expect. Two weeks ago, the team won the four-man bobsled championship in Park City, Utah, and team member Lumsden was named the fastest bobsleigh push athlete at the National Push Championship in Calgary this past weekend.

Sorensen says these recent successes are a good indication of how the team will do in the upcoming World Cup tournament.

However, if he and his team qualify for the Winter Olympic Games, Sorensen says the hard work will not stop there.

“Proving our consistency and being consistent throughout the Games will be the biggest challenge for sure,” he says.

Sorensen will know if he qualified for the Canadian Olympic team at the end of December before he heads to Europe in January 2014 for the four remaining World Cup races.

Sorensen, 27, was recruited to the Canadian National Bobsleigh Team in the fall of 2008 after joining the open tryouts. Before making the switch to bobsledding full-time, he was a provincial high-school hurdle champion and captain of the track team at the University of Guelph, where he got his degree in commerce. Sorensen says the transition to bobsledding felt natural.

“Bobsleigh seems to be a perfect fit of things I like to do in terms of training and my natural ability,” he says.

Training in the nation’s capital is more challenging in comparison to training in Calgary, Sorensen says. With no ice track available in his hometown, over the past six years Sorensen has made many trips next door to Lake Placid, N.Y., to train.

Sorensen has received funding from Sports Canada and the RBC Olympians program, which he describes as “a crucial part of my Olympics preparation plan.” The organizations’ funding allows him to focus his time and energy on training during the off-season instead of worrying about finances.

Sorensen says people often forget how much the Olympics can bring different levels of community together and inspire children and youth. He says being part of that experience is a “pretty awesome feeling.”

Family is also a source of motivation, Sorensen says. His natural athletic abilities don’t stem far—his father, Ole Sorensen, is a former Canadian Olympic wrestler who competed in the 1972 Olympics in Munich. Sorensen says he likes to make his parents and little brother proud when he is racing.

Sorensen says he is looking to the upcoming races with excitement and anticipation.

“There is no better day then race day,” he says.

The 2014 Winter Olympic Games will take place in Sochi, Russia, from Feb. 7 to Feb. 23, 2014.

Cover photo courtesy of velkr0, under a Creative Commons license.