Cam Stones, from missed meeting to a career in bobsleigh

“Four years ago I watched the Opening Ceremony from my couch,” posted Canada bobsled athlete, Cameron Stones, on Instagram, captioning an image of him at the Opening Ceremony of the Olympic Winter Games PyeongChang 2018. The now 30-year-old was not a medal contender at the Games four years ago – he finished 12th in the four-man bobsleigh – but he is now.

As per many of the sliding athletes, his route into the sport was unusual. Initially a rugby player – he’d played for eight years before taking up bobsleigh in 2015 and also turned out for Canada at U17 and U20 age group – he dropped the sport after constant injuries proved too much.

On the verge of leaving university, Stones was exploring his options, one of which was the opportunity to continue working at a bank. When a recruiter for the bank didn’t turn up to a meeting to discuss his career options, Stones decided to take up the offer he’d seen in a bobsleigh recruitment drive of trying the sport. He could always go back to banking after all; any chance at succeeding at bobsleigh though, and it had to be now.

There was also another, slightly more bizarre reason he was keen to try the sport, which he told The Brakeman blog in August 2020.

“I’d seen (former Canadian Olympians) Jesse Lumsden and Tim Randall training at my school and - this is a true story - I thought Lumsden had the biggest legs I had ever seen. It’s kind of a running joke in the team now because we say he has toothpicks but at the time I was like, ‘yeah, I want sweet legs like that’.”

Fast learner

“I knew nothing about this sport but it was freezing cold and, as for the run, I expected an icy smooth water slide," he said of his first early attempts. "Then on the second run down we crashed… I don’t think anyone enjoys bobsleigh when they first do it but I got back up that next day and thought, ‘this isn’t so bad’ and pretty much something I’d enjoy sticking with. So I ended up going through more testing... and ended up moving to Calgary.”

Stones progressed quickly. His first race was in January 2015, where he finished sixth in a North America Cup training race, the precursor to the elite-level season-long World Cup tour.

His first World Cup race was a year later, where he came 10th in the four-man at Lake Placid. By the end of that year he’d claimed his first podium, a third place in the same discipline, in the same location.

By 2017 he was officially a funded athlete, saying on Instagram: “I consider myself very fortunate to have received CAN Fund this summer. My training would not be where it is today if it were not for their help!”

The following year, and just three years after that aborted meeting, Stones was competing at an Olympic Winter Games.

Medal ware?

Stones’ latest results in both two-man and four-man indicate the aim for a medal at the Yanqing National Sliding Centre is not so far-fetched.

The 30-year-old has finished on the podium seven times in the 2021/22 World Cup season – in both two- and four-man races. The keen fisherman is also a double World Championships medallist winning two-man silver (with Justin Kripps), and four-man bronze (with Kripps, Ryan Sommer, Ben Coakwell) in 2019.

Stones and Kripps came 10th in the first event at Beijing 2022, the two-man but will hope to encroach more on the medal podium come the four-man, which starts Saturday (19 February) and finishes, Stones hopes, with a medal for the Canadians on the last day of the Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022 on Sunday (20 February).

The world governing body website would then be updated to read 'Olympic medal winner' alongside where it details the athlete's occupation. ‘Athlete’ it reads; in another life it could well have said 'bank manager'. Sliding doors indeed.