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’.”

“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