Katharine Eustace - Skeleton Racer

Katharine Eustace describes herself as “a bit of a sport junkie” and reckons she’d have a go at any sport – except maybe base jumping – but don’t tempt her! From being a 400mm runner at school and competing at Junior International level she then took on adventure racing and multisport, competing in the Coast to Coast and Southern Traverse. Her rule for racing is “If you’re not having fun, it’s not worth doing”. Fair enough too, but how does that then translate to hurling yourself down an ice track at 125km p/h with only a small sled and no brakes for company? Katharine is a skeleton racer.

How did you first get involved with the sport of skeleton?
I first got involved in Skeleton racing two years ago now. Louise Corcoran, a former Torino Olympian, was living in Wanaka for the NZ winter. When she was telling me about it, I was intrigued. It seemed that to succeed in the sport you had to have a sprinting background and also be the sort of person that could be relaxed travelling at 125+ km p/h head first on a sheet of ice! I thought, ‘I could do those things I should go and see what it is all about.’ Once I had a go I was hooked.

And what motivated you to push yourself to a competitive level?
I’m passionate about sport – any sport really and I’m willing to give most things a go. When I start something I like to see how well I can do, how much I can push myself – just to see what I can achieve for my own personal satisfaction and I do like to do things properly, get the small things right.

In skeleton racing I think that it helped that I was relatively successful from the start which made me want to keep pushing that little bit further. As it is very expensive and time consuming, being away from New Zealand for large parts of the year, I think it is something that you have to put everything into. I wanted to see how far I could take it. Initially the Olympics wasn’t the draw, I did better than expected in the first couple of races but never really thought that after two seasons I would be trying to qualify for the Vancouver Winter Olympics in February. It seemed unlikely that someone with just three years experience could make it that far, but the closer I get the more motivated I am just to give a shot. I would definitely say that I’m the underdog but ‘Impossible is nothing’. It also helps that I have my partner Simon and my family who are right behind me and giving me a lot of support, it would be so hard to do it totally on my own.

How do you train when at home in Wanaka/ NZ without access to an ice track?
I train with a bit of Kiwi ingenuity! Most of the off season we do gym work for strength and power, sprinting, plyometrics and resistance sprinting and we also do simulated push training. I was given a sled on wheels from Ben Sandford, another Torino Olympian, to use on the road or in the car park!

We have also been lucky enough to use the Southern Hemisphere Proving Ground’s ice tunnel. It is a world class testing facility so they are very generous to let us athletes train on it, again it is a great place to simulate the push start where we run flat out pushing our sled on the ice for about 25m.

It looks and sounds incredibly dangerous – is it as bad as it looks?
Out of all the sliding sports, bobsleigh, luge and skeleton, I’m pretty sure it’s one of the safer sports. OK, yes, we do travel at over 125kmph with our noses pretty much on the ice and if you have a crash then things could be nasty but then I’ve seen many girls travel fast on their mountain bikes, road bikes and skis which looks much more dangerous if you crash with all those poles and handle bars around!

How much control do you have travelling at such high speeds on ice?
Certainly once you get going on the track there’s no stopping until you get to the end! So in that sense there is limited control.

The actual steering of the skeleton sled is with small movements of the shoulder and knee to gently flex the sled to help it around the corners or to help you stop climbing high on the walls due to the pressures or oscillations that occur when come around a corner. If you want to steer more strongly, using your feet on the ice acts like a kind of rudder to turn you more sharply. However, as you are trying to reach maximum speeds every time you have your toes on the ice you are losing time so as much as possible we try and keep our toes off the ice and keep the movements small so that you get a smooth ride – sometimes it’s a fine line.

Have you had any major crashes/ injuries?
No major injuries and I hope it stays that way - just a few niggles from the high intensity and volume of training that we do. But crashes – yes, a few.
The most embarrassing one is when I didn’t even manage to get on my sled in the first place - it was during training and I was pushing and I accidently half stepped on the sled which put me off balance and then I let go of the sled and then slipped on the ice it all happened so fast and then all I could see was the sled disappearing down the track without me.

One of the other crashes could have been a bit more of a disaster. I was in Koenigssee in Germany racing in the last race of the season. They have a curve called a Kriesel which is a 360 degree curve, as you go around corners we oscillate getting closer to the roof and then closer to the floor. I didn’t quite make a hard enough steer for the speed that I was going and I hit the roof which kind of ping ponged me down to the floor and then I flipped over. The next thing, I am travelling along on the ice on my back with my sled on top of me, staring at the roof of the track. I was determined to get back on to register a finish time so flipped it back over only to flip over again in the next corner. Two corners later I got back on and managed the last few corners to cross the finish line – last. Apart from a couple of ice burns I was all in one piece just very disappointed as looking at the split times I had been going faster than I’d been before on this track. So I’m keen to get back there and sort it out and see how fast I can go!
 

Tell us a little about your struggles with sponsorship and funding.
I think that finding sponsorship and funding sport at this level is the hardest part of succeeding in elite sport. Everyone seems to have the same problems.
I work full time as a physiotherapist and I save as much as I can to cover the costs; however, I just cannot earn enough. The season this year will cost me around $60,000 including coaching, sliding fees, race entries new equipment (such as a new sled and runners) all flights and accommodation.

So I have to rely on fundraising and trying to find corporate or personal sponsorship which so far has been relatively unsuccessful. Wanaka Physiotherapy has helped me out with some funding, as well as giving me the time off to go and train and compete overseas. Ginny Rutledge, my boss, is very understanding; she has been the physiotherapist for the New Zealand Winter Olympic team for the last two Olympics so she knows exactly what is involved and helps out the best she can.

Icebreaker are a product sponsor, they provide me with a range of clothing to help keep me warm and clothed for training and racing. As the temperatures we race in can vary from +10 to -20 degrees the Icebreaker bodyfit range in the different weights means there is something for all race conditions. They have backed me from the start and it means a lot to know that someone believes in what you do even when you are starting from the beginning.

Other sponsors include Adidas and Horleys who have helped out with important parts of the sport which you don’t realise drain the funds such as racing suits and shoes and the nutritional side of my training which should be high priority for every athlete but for me is very important as time to eat is an issue when I am rushing from training to work and trying to carry out study and source funding.

My main source of funding came from an event that I organised with Ed Stevens from Highland Events who holds rogaines and mountain bike races in and around the Wanaka area. I wanted to try and organise a fundraiser where I could give something to people whilst trying to raise much needed funds to help me reach my goal. On speaking to Ed we came up with a rogaine that was based around Wanaka that was tough enough for the more experienced rogainer but with a course that also would be great for people attempting their first try at navigation, they hopefully couldn’t get too lost in and around town. We also encouraged families to come and participate to give everyone a taste. I think the youngest participant was 1 – they wondered where the treasure was!

After the rogaine we held an auction. I have to mention the huge amount of Wanaka businesses who kindly donated products that we auctioned off, I think that the biggest surprise was a sheep that went for over $400 donated by Sarah and Stew Perriam from Long Gulley Station. I owe a lot to those businesses for helping out. I hope that I can thank them by coming home having qualified for the Olympics. I was humbled that so many people in the local community got behind me either with prizes or by coming to participate.

Unfortunately, I haven’t quite reached my budget target but I felt I had enough to come away, I will continue to seek corporate sponsorship but it is tough times at the moment. Hopefully after we start racing and with some good results I will then be able to secure some more funding.

 

Anything you’d like to add?
They say you should do 1 thing a day that scares you. I think this is partly true. I’m not saying you have to be scared out of your wits for part of everyday of your life. Just don’t think that you can’t do something until you’ve given it a try, even if the thought of it makes you feel a bit nervous right there in the pit of your stomach. Get out there and have a go. No one will laugh at you, except hopefully you, no one will think you’re crazy, except maybe your mother. You just never know what you might achieve.