Former Gator Mesler Readies for Winter Olympics
Wednesday, February 24, 2010 | Track and Field
By Mark Maloney
For GatorZone.com
Steve Mesler, a pusher on the USA I four-man bobsled, has a message for Florida fans who will be watching the final weekend of the Vancouver Winter Olympic Games.
“I hope that they're proud to see a Gator wearing the rings for our country,” said Mesler, the Gator. “I want them to enjoy it, give them a connection to the Games. On television it's cool, but when you feel a personal connection to the Olympics, it's a totally different thing watching it. So I want them to sit at home in Gainesville Friday and Saturday night and know that there's a Gator out there, and be proud and have fun watching.”
Yep. A Florida Gator, class of 2000, is in the Winter Olympics.
Mesler, in a sled driven by Steve Holcomb, will have two runs on the Whistler Sliding Centre track Friday and two more Saturday. Total time from the four trips determine order of finish.
Mesler, 31, has been a big story during the Games.
He returned from a January competition in Austria to learn that he had been scammed out of thousands of dollars. His deal to secure family lodging for the Olympics was a fraud.
“It was kind of a 'fun' thing to deal with for a couple days -- obviously, a lot of sarcasm in that one,” Mesler said. “It's been great. The people in Whistler stepped up.”
Whistler residents, upon hearing what happened, offered free use of a home for Mesler's parents, sister and friends.
Procter & Gamble, an official Olympics sponsor, replaced money that his parents lost.
“It was pretty cool,” Mesler said.
How did an all-Southeastern Conference performer on the Gator track team, primarily in the decathlon, and all-SEC academic pick end up in a bobsled?
“Track wasn't going the way I wanted,” he said. “I was a national champion in high school in track and I had gone down to Florida (from Buffalo) because I wanted to do some big things in the sport. And I just never did. I was pretty injury prone. I had ankle injuries. I had Tommy John surgery on my elbow at the end of my career. I was applying to grad school and I was looking for a coaching job. And I just decided I wasn't quite ready to be done yet. I didn't want to think that I had peaked when I was 17 years old and I didn't want to be out of that spotlight quite yet.”
Assistant track coach Jerry Clayton, now at Auburn, mentioned that Mesler reminded him of another track athlete who gravitated to bobsled.
“So that kind of put it in the back of my head – maybe I should try that,” Mesler said. “I e-mailed the (U.S.) Olympic Committee and said 'I'm this big, this strong and fast. I want to know if I can do this. If I can, great. If not, you won't hear from me again.' The next day I got e-mails back from the (U.S. Bobsled and Skeleton) Federation – got passed along from the USOC – and said 'yeah, … just start gaining weight.' So I started gaining weight and the next thing I knew I was at camp in San Diego, at Chula Vista Training Center in '01. Before I knew it I was walking in opening ceremonies in February of '02.”
Listed at 6-foot-2, 206 pounds, Mesler has lived in Canada for the past seven years – at Calgary, site of the 1988 Winter Olympics – to train under Coach Stuart McMillan.
An alternate at the Salt Lake City Olympics, Mesler was a regular four years later at the Torino Games, in a sled driven by 2002 silver-medalist Todd Hays. A seventh-place finish served as a lesson learned.
“Don't take anything for granted. We had won two out of three World Cup races going into the Olympics that year. We were ranked third or fourth in World Cup going in and we had a lot of momentum, and we were favored and we got crushed,” Mesler said. “I know one thing … it doesn't matter what we've done this year. It doesn't matter one bit because the Olympics are a different game, so we have to be ready to step it up and to understand that nothing we've done to this point – we don't have any advantage over anybody else because of what we've done.”
After Torino, Mesler joined Holcomb's team, now the reigning world champions.
Mesler calls Holcomb, based in Park City, Utah, “the best driver I've ever been with. There's not another guy I'd like to be with on the hill, as difficult as it is.”
The track is the same one where a luger from the country of Georgia was killed Feb. 12 during a practice run. While the death left an impression, Mesler thinks USA I sets up well on the Whistler ice.
“Every track has its tricks. … That one little patch down there – (turns) 11, 12, 13 on this track is difficult,” he said. “Like I say, though, there's not another driver I'd rather be behind. We won silver at the World Cup here last year, so we've proven that we can do well here.
“The start at the top, it's a short flat and a steep downhill. We've always pushed well as a team. The last race we had, the track there was kind of a similar style. It was in Konigssee, Germany, and we won the start there by three or four hundredths (of a second), which is a pretty good margin. If we can win the starts here by three or four hundredths, we'll be a lot ahead. So this is definitely our kind of start.”
As a right-side pusher, third to load, Mesler's job is quick but crucial.
“For the push, hopefully it will take us under 4.7 seconds. For that time, our job – we're the horses. So our job is to be strong, fast and agile to get in the sled,” he said. “All four of us are trying to hit the sled at the same time, hit it as we move it off the block. Then, at that point it's an all-out sprint, as if you were pulling a sled … so everybody on the team is fast and strong.
“Once we get going, we start going down the hill, we load. That's probably our best attribute as a team, is our ability to get in the sled and the quickness that we use when we get in. That allows us to give the best acceleration to the sled as we get in. … That's how you're going to propel it for the next few turns.”
Between Holcomb, in the No. 2 spot, is Justin Olsen of San Antonio. The brakeman and last in the sled is Curt Tomasevicz of Shelby, Neb.
USA II will be piloted by John Napier of Lake Placid, N.Y., USA III by Mike Kohn of Fairfax, Va.
