It may be a dystopian Games but Olympians deserve all the cheers

THE building shook to the thunderous footsteps of dozens of hundred-kilo men, sprinting between rows of parked cars. One by one they ran from one wall to another. It could have been a dystopian scene of mass control or Sisyphean punishment. It was, in fact, a makeshift warm-up area for the best bobsleigh teams ahead of the final World Cup of the season.

While Mother Nature showed off her finest work on a sunny St Moritz morning, elite athletes sought out a stretch of man-smoothed floor long enough and horizontal enough to get themselves ready. I’m not sure I’ve seen a contrast quite like it in elite sport.

Bobsleigh garners little wider attention outside of the two-week window of Olympic coverage, and it’s one I got up close to last month and found truly fascinating.

While we can imagine the extra work that goes into competing in a sport which receives no UK sport funding, the reality is much more brutal. And much more common across winter sports than summer.

With bobsleigh, the teams not only have to raise the £100,000 or so it is estimated to take for an athlete to be on the medal pathway, but the £85,000 needed to buy a sled. Training, transport, living costs, all have to be covered. That’s before budgeting for the ‘luxury’ of proper medical care and physio attention required in a sport which involves jumping onto the floor of a tin box to slide down an ice track at some 90 miles-per-hour.

The raw details are laid out in a new Discovery documentary, One Last Push, charting Greg Rutherford’s journey through the sport.

Rutherford is the epitome of athletic brilliance, yet suffered a fractured shoulder and herniated disc in his neck, among other eye-watering ailments, such are the demands of bobsleigh.

While the Olympic long