Canada's Lyndon Rush (C), Jesse Lumsden (R), Cody Sorenson (L) and Neville Wright push off the start line during Men's World Cup Bobsleigh in Whistler, British Columbia February 4, 2012. The team placed third in the race.ANDY CLARK/Reuters
An "all-star" crew and a new sled have bobsled pilot Lyndon Rush feeling bullish about the coming season.
His two-man sled is already among the best in the world, and Canada's No. 1 driver wants his four-man team in position for the podium at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.
"Coming into Sochi, we want to be a contender in both," Rush said Tuesday from Montreal, where this year's national bobsled team was unveiled.
Rush, from Humboldt, Sask., feels he has powerhouse personnel, with Olympic medalist Lascelles Brown returning to Canada, Jesse Lumsden strong and healthy, and veteran pushers Neville Wright and Cody Sorensen on his crew.
"I've never had anything like this before," Rush said. "It's almost like an all-star team. I'm really focused on the four-man this year. We struggled in four-man last year. I think this is the year when we need to bring that up."
Rush drove Canada to Olympic bronze in Whistler, B.C., in 2010, but was seventh in four-man at January's world championship in Lake Placid, N.Y.
Rush and company will put their new Eurotech sled up against international competition for the first time at the season-opening World Cup in Lake Placid next week. The lone Canadian stop this season is Nov. 19-24 at the Whistler Sliding Centre.
The four-man sled cost more than $100,000 to build from scratch, according to head coach Tom De La Hunty. Own The Podium paid for the sled's development and will provide $1.4-million in funding overall to the 20-athlete bobsled team in 2012-13.
De La Hunty says Rush's four-man model has superior aerodynamics, with high sides covering more of the athletes' shoulders.
"Lyndon was really operating on inferior equipment most of last season," De La Hunty said. "He's very confident in the new four-man and confidence in your equipment of course, breeds confidence in your driving."
Brown returns to the Canadian team after two seasons sliding for Monaco. He won an Olympic silver medal pushing Pierre Lueders in two-man in 2006, followed by bronze with Rush in 2010.
"What it does is it brings a world-class athlete back onto the team and puts pressure on the others and there's nothing wrong with that as far as I'm concerned," De La Hunty said.
Rush and Lumsden took silver in two-man at this year's world championships, even though Lumsden played catch-up with his conditioning all season following knee surgery.
Lumsden, a former CFL running back from Edmonton, and Brown took turns breaking push records at the Ice House in Calgary last month.
They'll vie to be in Rush's two-man sled at World Cups and are also in his four-man rotation alongside Edmonton's Wright and Ottawa's Sorensen.
Canada has hit a sweet spot in depth of male talent, with all three sleds racing World Cups this winter expected to post top results. Calgary's Chris Spring is at the helm of Canada 2, and Justin Kripps of Summerland, B.C., will pilot Canada 3.
The internal competition among the men to both keep their jobs and earn promotion to a higher-ranked crew can help push Canada up the world rankings in four-man.
"We want to be top three to five in every race," De La Hunty said. "I've got very high expectations of Spring and Kripps of being very close to Lyndon. Our target has got to be to win the world championships, that's for sure."
Olympic champion Kaillie Humphries of Calgary will drive one of two women's sleds. She's auditioning Emily Baadsvik of St. Stephen, N.B., and newcomer Chelsea Valois of Zenon Park, Sask., on the brake.
"Ideally you want two amazing girls and as hard as it is for the brakemen to be in that position, I think it pushes them to consistently get better and faster," Humphries said.
"As a pilot, it's always good because if something happens to one with an injury, you've got another that's as equally good."