It just doesn't ring right.
A high profile pro football player parachutes into a four-year Olympic quadrennial program two races into the Olympic season season, joining the team in Europe, and threatens to bounce a regular out of a ride at the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games.
And he's being voted Mr. Congeniality?
Pierre Lueders was saying what a seamless transition Jesse Lumsden had made into becoming announced as an official member of Canada's World Cup bobsled team Tuesday.
“Jesse fit into the program very easily,” said the legendary Canadian bobsled pilot. “He's been a big plus. We're getting nothing but comments on what a great teammate he is.”
It took the Edmonton Eskimos running back to explain that it's not quite a walk-in-the-door-and-get-hugs-and-kisses sort of thing.
“It's like football. People are always coming in to take your job and you're always trying to keep yours.
“I've been a new face on four football teams and now one bobsled team and it's pretty much the same story every time. You're going to have some tension and you're going to have some acceptance.
"It's all about earning trust.”
In team sport, you become teammates, trying to win together and play for each other no matter what line-up the coach decides to go with. It's the way it works.
As reported by Sun Media Tuesday, Lumsden will be Lueders' brakeman in next weekend's World Cup two-man bobsled event in Winterberg, Germany, alternating with former U of A Golden Bears running back David Bissett who will be pushing the sled this weekend in the World Cup race at the Torino 2006 Olympic venue in Cesana, Italy.
Bissett, Justin Kripps of Summerland, B.C. and Edmonton track star Neville Wright, like Lumsden an Olympic year rookie, will be, from front to back, loading into Lueders four-man sled this weekend.
“The last couple of years the team needed some outside motivation,” said Lueders. “Bringing in these athletes has raised everybody's training and intensity. I'm not too worried about the chemistry thing.”
Whether there's a possibility of Edmontonian Lueders having four Edmonton men in a tub in Whister for the Olympics or not is a project for a Las Vegas oddsmaker, but with a national conference call Tuesday Lumsden was formally announced as a full-fledged member of the team and both Canadian coach Tuffy Latour and Lueders made it quite clear they just weren't fooling around here.
When Olympic roster naming day Jan. 17 arrives, Lumsden definitely has an opportunity of being in the back of a bobsled in the greatest show on snow.
“He has a real chance of being an Olympian,” said Canadian coach Latour. Funny how many people laughed at that idea back when your correspondent broke the story last spring. But now Lumsden is the real deal with the red maple leaf on his back and a chance to add a five ring tattoo to his body artwork.
From this point it will all be decided by timing data, comparing start times with other teams with stable line-ups from race to race which certainly won't be the case with Lueders who also has Ken Kotyk of Rama, Sask., a regular with Kripps and Bissett, also in the mix.
If Lueders Canada 1 sleds have faster start times with Jesse Lumsden pushing than a set lineup team like the Russians have in comparison, then the Eskimos running back is going to be pushing him in the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games says Lueders.
Lumsden won a Canadian title in Lueders sled last spring but it was a first place finish in a two-man Europa Cup development race last week which convinced everybody involved to make Lumsden much more than an experiment.
On the other hand, does becoming an official member of Canada's No. 1 World Cup team mean Lumsden will spend his Eskimo off-seasons being a bobsledder through the next four years leading to the Olympics in Russia?
“I have no idea,” he said. “I don't even know what I'm having for dinner Wednesday.
“Each race I'm going to perform to the best of my ability and hopefully get the opportunity to represent Canada in Vancouver at the Games. If not, then I have a football season to get ready for.”
