On a fast track to glory
By FELICITY REID - Norwest News
POWER START: Louise Corcoran in action during the 2007 world championships
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Balancing on her stomach with her chin and toes only millimetres from the ice, skeleton racer Louise Corcoran will be trying to relax as she speeds head-first towards her goal of Olympic gold.
Using only her bodyweight to steer a fibreglass sled at 130kmh down a bobsleigh track, the Bethells resident will summon nerves of steel, an adventurous spirit and a determination to represent New Zealand at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Canada.
This week at a ceremony celebrating 100 years of New Zealand involvement in Olympic Games, Corcoran was recognised as the 983rd New Zealand Olympian for her part in the 2006 Winter Olympics.
But the 29-year-old who works in Kumeu plans to do everything in her power to get a second shot at a medal in eight months.
"At your first Olympics you think you are prepared – you’re not. It is unlike any other sporting event, it’s huge and daunting," she says.
Corcoran has seen next year’s Vancouver Olympic skeleton racing track, which she says is "demanding, dangerous – the fastest track in the world".
Despite the speed – 1km runs are over in less than 55 seconds – Corcoran insists skeleton racers are not adrenalin junkies. In fact says she is a bit of a "scaredy cat".
After a 52-year absence skeleton racing was reintroduced to the Olym-pics for the 2002 Salt Lake City games.
That was the first time women could vie for Olympic glory in a sport that has been undertaken by international athletes for more than a century.
Corcoran’s rise was rapid.
In 1999, as a fit teenager from a non-sporting background, she quit her job as a tramping guide and went on an OE with a difference – a five-day training school in Canada to qualify as an international racer.
All she knew about the sport before that was from an hour-long phone conversation with 1993 world champion Bruce Sandford of Hamilton, and a Sunday Star-Times article.
"There were no online videos of crashes or blogs about it. All I had was one photo from the paper."
Three months after her first run, Corcoran represented New Zealand in a world cup.
On the eve of her 10th international season she is ranked 33 in the world.
But world success isn’t easy when you’re from this part of the world.
There is no sliding track in the southern hemisphere suitable for bobsleighing or skeleton racing.
Without a coach or proper equipment when she first started on the world circuit, Corcoran learned the intricacies of the sport by "beating myself up on the way down".
Spectacular high-speed crashes resulted in numerous black eyes, broken ribs and a fractured vertebra.
But she believes she timed her entry perfectly.
"I feel privileged to have been involved before it returned as an Olympic sport."
Over the past decade Corcoran has been one of six New Zealand women to compete internationally.
"New Zealand has one of the most successful teams from a small nation."
As the youngest Kiwi woman competitor Corcoran plans to get more youngsters involved.
"I want to bring the sport to New Zealand and build a track here.
"It would attract international athletes in their summer and turn New Zealand into a winter sport mecca."
She has also been building sleds through the Taniwha Sled Company she runs with her engineer brother.
But before she can focus on the youngsters Corcoran needs to raise enough money to keep paying her coach – two-time luge Olympian Tim Nardiello – and make November’s seven Olympic qualifiers in Canada.
Despite the challenges nothing diminishes her passion for one of the world’s fastest high-performance sports.
