Strong Talk: The US Bobsled Team Is Comprised of Talented Athletes—And Active Duty Soldiers

THE 2026 MILAN-CORTINA Video games originate on February 6, and athletes from across the enviornment will convene in Italy to compete for gold and glory. The U.S. Bobsled team is conscious of a thing or two about representing their home nation. Some of its members aren’t appropriate gifted athletes—they’re moreover energetic accountability troopers.

The Navy World Class Athlete Program (WCAP) helps the coaching of soldier-athletes for national and international sports competitions, and this year’s Milan-Cortina video games will witness six members of the US Navy competing in plenty of sports. One of those athletes is Sergeant Frank Del Duca, a bobsled pilot. He joins Solid Talk along with three-time Olympian and silver medalist Lieutenant Colonel Chris Fogt, who’s serving because the coach for Workforce USA Bobsled.

The WCAP program has offered bigger than appropriate a coaching camp for its athletes, in step with Del Duca, who used to be moreover now not too long within the past chosen as Flag Bearer for Workforce USA for the opening ceremonies. “I’ve learned a lot about teamwork, discipline [through WCAP],” he says. “I have Army superiors who have done so much, both in and out of sport and in and out of the Army, that I have this wealth of knowledge of mentorship that has helped me on and off the ice.”

The pair spoke with MH health director Ebenezer Samuel, C.S.C.S to focus on preparation for the video games, the abominable challenges faced in bobsled coaching, and why bobsledding is even handed a 2d-likelihood sport.

Bobsledding is a uncommon physics area where the sled picks up more momentum after an preliminary explosive power. “Pushing a bobsled is a resisted poke that transitions into an assisted poke, because you are pushing a 400-pound sled on flat floor. It is ice, so it does construct speed,” explains Del Duca. Athletes need to construct that energy in about five seconds, he says, sooner than the sled goes downhill. “You would very nicely be drawing shut and hitting your high speed after breaking that inertia… You would possibly want to aloof be like a flash, you agree with to be extremely efficient.”

Del Duca says the fastest bobsled speed is around 97 miles per hour at the Whistler World Championships in 2019. “It does get very wild,” he provides. “When you atomize or now and again you hit a wall at 90 miles an hour, or now not it is treasure getting hit by a automobile.”

So what does a bobsled training session look like? Fogt can tell you what’s not included. Despite what you might have seen in the 1993 movie Chilly Runnings, Fogt says bobsledders pause now not sit down in a tub to observe leaning. As a change, Del Duca and Fogt reveal bobsled coaching is terribly reminiscent of coaching treasure a soccer participant.

“We survey speed, energy, and energy—in that expose,” explains Fogt. “You can not appropriate be like a flash and puny, because you would’t get that sled to transfer very like a flash. You can not [just] be solid, because once that sled picks up speed, you would possibly well descend to your face and would possibly well now not get within the sleds.”

Along with mentorship, the WCAP affords a holistic solution to coaching that emphasizes sleep, diet, and mental readiness. In Fogt’s expertise, working with the WCAP pushed him from being a proper athlete to to take into accounta good one. “I used to be coaching laborious. I used to be doing a bunch of weights, but the sleep, diet, sports psych, all that stuff, essentially helped trade the game and take that step up.”

Want more deep-dive fitness wisdom from Samuel and other celebs and experts who’ve been on our Strong Talk podcast? Check out all our episodes here.