Greg Cackett here producing my second of the promised cache of the Equisoft I Altus Consulting blogs (should be number four, currently in breach of contract) and I’m delighted to be coming to you all with cautiously optimistic news… we’re all fit!
After a quick reread of last year’s blog, to help with context on writing this one, I noticed what a truly tumultuous time we had had. Getting to the end of that season was a hell of a task given everyone’s physical status.
Before we went away for the new year portion of competition, Arran Gulliver tore a hamstring during a Christmas training session, giving competitive opportunities to Leon Greenwood. Myself and Brad Hall’s progress back to fitness proved tricky to balance with competing and Taylor Lawrence continued to be bionic.
A note on Leon. We mentioned in a recent talk at the Equisoft I Altus Consulting head office, the extraordinary story our two ‘rookies’ share. Leon and Arran came into our crew as complete newbies in the season of 2022/23. After a freak training accident where Leon broke his toe, competitive opportunities were handed to Arran and we ended up having that extraordinary medal-laden year. Last season, Arran’s torn hamstring handed the same opportunity back to Leon, except for him he had a half-fit crew with myself and Brad hanging on for dear life. Despite this additional difficulty, he acquitted himself in stunning fashion and produced many top starts with some great finishes too.
In the end, our heavily asterisked, injury-hit (excuses-laden) season was as follows:
Year 2 of 4 year approach to the 2026 Milan/Cortina Olympics*
- BMW IBSF World Cup Innsbruck: 6th place (our first race back)
- BMW IBSF World Cup St.Moritz: 6th place (dropped from 3rd which was frustrating but still promising signs).
- BMW IBSF World Cup Lillehammer: 🥉(back on the podium!)
- 2024 BMW IBSF Winterberg World Championships: 6th place
It doesn’t look like much, but these were massive results for such a challenging year. In seasons gone by, fully fit British teams would’ve bitten your hand off for a top 6 result and we didn’t drop outside of that position for every race we competed in.
The other thing to bear in mind is we compete race to race accruing points. If you don’t have the points, you don’t have the ranking. If you don’t have the ranking, you don’t get the advantageous early seeding. For all our races we were ranked way outside of the early spots meaning we were always racing on slower, damaged ice.
But that was the challenge before us and we took it on with open eyes. Getting a podium place in Norway was great and still maintaining a top 6 World Champs finish was about the best we could hope for and (now the sulking is over) we reflect on these results with pride.
Now let’s look ahead.
This summer season (the building training blocks for winter athletes) we are looking extremely fast. At our training site at the University of Bath, Arran and Leon are pushing faster times in training than they were hitting in test days last year. That’s exceptional progress.
The season ahead is a truly exciting one, namely because the 2025 World Championships are in Lake Placid, the North American site of our debut World Cup gold. If the crew keeps going as it is, we’ll be lined up as one of the favourites for a World title, and imagine that? A struggling crew who, a few years ago, barely had a few beans to rub together before we found our family of sponsors, taking a World title into the Olympic season. Stranger things have happened, and we know you’ll be behind us all the way.
We are often asked to speak at schools and businesses, highlighting the values of resilience, perseverance, adaptability and more, but sometimes you don’t need to think in terms of existential profundity.
Sometimes it’s just about taking each day at a time, doing the best you can in the seconds that present themselves and allowing those small moments to accrue into something wonderful.
Make the most of moments. And see how all those profound character traits bear out in action anyway.
As for me personally? I am thankfully getting back to full fitness, and I am relishing the challenge of moving to a new position on the sled for the first time in my career.
Brad is finally able to train harder than he has been capable of in years.
And Taylor continues to be bionic.
Thanks for reading this far! If you would like to follow our progress in the season ahead, visit the IBSF YouTube channel or our website for more information.
Next update: we’ll be heading off around the world and putting the summer months’ hard work into practice. Stay tuned.
