{"id":228972,"date":"2026-02-17T11:30:05","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T11:30:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/17\/no-cushion-no-seatbelt-no-airbag-the-gb-bobsledder-who-races-with-her-eyes-closed\/"},"modified":"2026-02-17T11:30:05","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T11:30:05","slug":"no-cushion-no-seatbelt-no-airbag-the-gb-bobsledder-who-races-with-her-eyes-closed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/17\/no-cushion-no-seatbelt-no-airbag-the-gb-bobsledder-who-races-with-her-eyes-closed\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018No cushion, no seatbelt, no airbag\u2019: the GB bobsledder who races with her eyes closed"},"content":{"rendered":"

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A<\/span>shleigh Nelson was never meant to be in the Winter Olympics<\/a>. If you\u2019d asked her 18 months ago where she expected to be competing this week, she would have told you she would be at the Utilita Arena in Birmingham running the 60m at the UK Indoor Championships, not standing at the top of the world\u2019s newest ice track riding a \u00a375,000 bobsleigh.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was tricked into it,\u201d Nelson says. \u201cYou laugh, but it\u2019s true.\u201d Nelson only got into it after the GB bob pilot Adele Nicole sent her a message on Instagram just after the Paris Olympics asking if she fancied giving it a go.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI didn\u2019t know anything about it before I went down, I\u2019d never seen a crash. I didn\u2019t even know people did crash, the closest I\u2019d ever come to a bobsleigh before was watching Cool Runnings,\u201d Nelson says, ahead of the two-woman bob, which starts official practice on Tuesday afternoon before the competition on Friday.<\/p>\n

Nelson\u2019s idea of speed was what she could achieve on her own two feet. She is one of the most decorated female sprinters GB has ever had. She was part of 4x100m relay teams that won gold medals in the European Championships in 2014 and the Commonwealth Games in 2022, and silver and bronze medals at the World Athletics<\/a> Championships in 2013 and 2019, as well as an individual bronze and silver medals at the European and the World Junior and World Youth Championships. It was only four years ago she was picked as the team captain for the European Championships in Munich.<\/p>\n

Then everything went wrong. \u201cI\u2019d had a brilliant year, there was no reason for me to think I would stop. Then I got injured.\u201d It was her achilles. The doctors gave her six months to recover, then decided she needed to have surgery. It cost her a year of competition. \u201cI would have loved to have been at the Paris Olympics, but it was all just too much of a rush.\u201d She was 32 and \u201cready to retire\u201d when she got that Instagram message.<\/p>\n

<\/svg><\/span>Adele Nicole and Ashleigh Nelson compete in the two-woman bob at the 2025 world championships in Lake Placid, New York.<\/span> Photograph: Maddie Meyer\/Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cIt caught me at a vulnerable time,\u201d Nelson says. \u201cI didn\u2019t make the Olympic Games and it was around that time Adele messaged me, I was feeling a bit sad and vulnerable, so when she said: \u2018Do you fancy bobsleigh?\u2019 I was like \u2018maybe\u2019. And then 18 months later I\u2019m at the Winter Olympics, which is a bit bizarre.\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a long history of track athletes making the crossover from one sport to the other, bobsledders need to have that explosive sprinting ability to set the sled off and running down the mountain. Joel Fearon, James Dasaolu, Mark-Lewis Francis, and Montell Douglas are just a few who have made the switch.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s not for everyone. As Nelson found out when she tried it for the first time during a training camp in Lillehammer.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no cushion. There\u2019s no seatbelt. There\u2019s no airbags,\u201d says Nelson. \u201cThe first time I went down I was told: \u2018Whatever happens, just hold on tight, don\u2019t let go.\u2019 When I got to the bottom my body was in shock, I\u2019d had a lot of caffeine and when I got out of the sled my nervous system was on edge. I just said: \u2018What was that?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

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The experience of being a passenger in a bob, if you\u2019ve never been lucky enough to try it, is something like being stuck in the drum of a washing machine and tossed down a mountain. Nelson comes from a sporty family. Her brother was a sprinter, her father played for Stoke, her cousin Curtis plays for MK Dons<\/a>. But this was a first, even for them.<\/p>\n

<\/svg><\/span>Ashleigh Nelson crosses the line during the heats of the women\u2019s 4x100m relay at the 2022 European Championships in Munich, where she was the GB captain.<\/span> Photograph: Matthias Hangst\/Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cI called my mum afterwards and said: \u2018Mum, I don\u2019t think this is for me,\u2019\u201d Nelson says. \u201cAnd my mum said: \u2018Well you\u2019ve gone all the way to Norway, you\u2019re supposed to be there for two weeks, just stick it out.\u2019\u201d A few days later she had her first run with Nicole as her pilot, \u201cand that wasn\u2019t so bad. You still get rattled, and some tracks are worse than others, but when I\u2019ve got a driver like Adele I know that I\u2019m safe.\u201d Which still doesn\u2019t necessarily mean Nelson enjoys it. She cheerfully admits that she races with her eyes tight shut.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy am I going to open them?\u201d Nelson laughs. The large part of her work is in the first 50m, and she\u2019s exceptionally good at it. \u201cI\u2019m fast, I\u2019m strong, I\u2019m not just here because I\u2019ve got nice hair,\u201d she says \u201cI squat 260kg.\u201d But after that \u201cI\u2019m in the back with my head tucked between my legs holding onto the sled! I can\u2019t see anything that\u2019s happening. I memorise the track and I count the corners so I know where I am, but when you\u2019ve got your eyes closed and you\u2019re going 80mph you\u2019ll forgive me if I get a bit disorientated.\u201d After the year she\u2019s had, you can.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Ashleigh Nelson was never meant to be in the Winter Olympics. If you\u2019d asked her 18 months ago where she expected to be competing this week, she would have told you she would be at the Utilita Arena in Birmingham running the 60m at the UK Indoor Championships, not standing at the top of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":228973,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6802],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-228972","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-athetics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228972","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=228972"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228972\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/228973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=228972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=228972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=228972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}