(August 14, 2024) – For our fourth athlete profile of 2024 (and the 49th in the “Getting to Know…” series) we catch up with British bobsledder John Stanbridge. Stanbridge has been sliding since 2014 for the Royal Air Force team and competing internationally in 2019. Stanbridge made his World Cup debut in the 2023/2024 season, and later in the season raced in his first World Championships.
Slider: John Stanbridge
Team: British Bobsleigh
Hometown: Luton
Home track: Lillehammer
Sponsors: tlmNexus, KS Composites, Force Solutions Limited, Acres Engineering
Like we do with all of these, we’ll start with: What is your favorite track and why?
It’s going to be Königssee. It was the second track I managed to train on. I like the Kreisel, the esses, the kinks, there’s all these little things that try to trick you out. The steering is so diverse, you never know what’s going to happen when you come out of those kinks, you’re praying to God a little bit!
They’re on their way back to having the track back!
What I’ve heard is that potentially we’ll have it available by 2025/2026. I’m hoping we get it back on the circuit, it’s another challenge that I think has been missed around Europe. I think we’ve been to Altenberg and Winterberg a little too much lately, so it would be nice to be back!
Unrelated to the track, what’s your favorite town on the schedule?
I’ll have to say Igls and Innsbruck. It’s quite lively, it’s where I first started sliding. The area is great and the people are quite welcoming. It’s usually around Christmastime so they have all of the decorations out!
Everyone did *something* before bobsled, what sports did you play before getting involved?
At the younger level, when I was a teenager, it was football and rugby and those kind of generic UK sort of sports. But the introduction to bobsleigh came sort of from nothing. I saw a flyer at work in the military that said to give it a go!
The very first video on your Instagram is a video from 2014 at Igls of someone bobsledding, tell us more about that.
That was me watching, getting ready to drive! It was the first week actually on ice training with the military. That track walk was two hours before we got sent down – four or five corners down and off you go! It’s baptism by fire, it’s kind of survival of the fittest…or the thickest! Depends on how you look at it!
The RAF and British military in general have a pretty big sporting program and have their own championships for sliding sports, right?
In 2023 they were racing in Lillehammer for the services. This year when we were in Winterberg at World Champs the military was at St. Moritz. It’s unfortunate that they keep scheduling it at the same time, because then I can’t come back and help the Air Force beat the Navy or the Army.
Given the other sports that the RAF is involved with, what drew you to bobsled?
It was sort of the adrenaline side of it! I joined up in the military when I was 18, I’d never had a passport, I’d never been abroad. I couldn’t drive. The Air Force gave me the opportunity to try all of these new things. So I’d already tried jumping out of a plane, Id been gliding, and all of this other sort of stuff. So I thought “Let’s try this!”
So bobsleigh…everyone sort of sees it through Cool Runnings…but once I got inside the sled and felt that feel of control, it really pushes you outside of your comfort zone and outside of your limits. As military, that’s what we need to do every day, we need to be able to perform in that sort of environment. Once you crash and get back in, that’s the courage part that I enjoy. And for me as a pilot it’s a reward I get…that feeling when you do something right and you can feel the momentum in the sled or see that clock at the end.
RAF also has the Cresta Run championships. Have you done that?
I haven’t! That seems a little bit more unhinged and with a little less skilled involved! I think bobsleigh has that skill and reward aspect involved that it’s going to challenge me. Cresta…I think they’re praying a little to the Gods that they’re going to get down okay!
You made your World Cup and World Championship debut this past season, what was that experience like for you?
For me it was a culmination of four or five years of international hard work, but also a dream that I’d set for myself ten years ago when I had that first week away on ice. We have objectives and yearly appraisals at work, and I set one of my objectives was to eventually race in World Cup and in a World Championship for Great Britain. And this is me at 21 or 22 years old, 73 kilograms at the time. Actually getting there and making it happen was a big relief, and I really enjoyed it as well. Being able to show what I can do and how I’ve progressed, it keeps building up. Coming back from injury too, being able to come back to it and perform the way I did, it felt like I belonged there. I can compete and I’m not there to just show up and be in the back of the pack. We did that in the first race to get a second run, and in the second World Cup we showed we can really compete a little bit!
How different is it when you get to the World Cup level compared to Europe or North American Cup?
There’s definitely a different aspect to that. We’ve been quite lucky that some of the other guys who stepped up to World Cup were on Europe Cup a year or two before that…Cipulis, Follador, some of the Swiss and Czech guys…so the environment was familiar. It wasn’t big and scary or anything, there was just maybe some more cameras to take a picture, which is useful for us when we’re trying to promote ourselves! The Europe Cup doesn’t really get the kind of coverage that maybe it should as a circuit. The bigger thing is the focus on myself, and being centered to perform the way I can and the way I had been on the Europe Cup.
During a European Cup race in Altenberg in 2022 I made a small mistake in Curve 4 to Curve 5, crashed. The initial crash was fine, but a little farther down one of the lower starts sits out just a little bit. I ended up hitting my head against the ice, I was sort of trapped a bit and couldn’t get all the way in. I ended up fracturing my C5 vertebrae and ruptured two other discs in my spine. I ended up getting to the bottom of the track, went to the doctors and told them something didn’t feel right…it was like a dull ache and I heard a pop when it initially happened. They put me on a stretcher…the medical staff at the track were great…and in an hour and a half I was in an air ambulance to Dresden Hospital where I found what I’d done and had an operation within 24 hours, where they fused and put a metal cage across those vertebrae and removed the discs inside.
I was told there was a chance of being paralyzed because of the area that they were working with, with the nerve damage and everything.
It obviously set me back a little bit. I missed the rest of the season, and we were on a pretty good progression at the time, making a four-man debut that year at Altenberg, and things were really going well.
Within 48 hours after the operation I was able to move around, walk up and down steps…and it was at that point I was relatively okay and I could maybe come back to the sport.
Was there a level of nervousness when you got back in the sled?
There was definite nervousness. The first track we went to when I got back was Sigulda, and I’d never driven there before! So the second or third day we went from the lower start and I ended up crashing the sled. When I crashed I kept myself tight and made sure I was in. The brakeman in the back was very supportive.
When we got to the bottom I was fine, and it felt like a bit of relief off my shoulders, like “Okay, I can do this, let’s concentrate on what I need to do now and enjoy every day of this, because potentially I may not have been back in the first place.” So from there it was really a mentality to enjoy what we’re doing.
When the season ends, what do you like to do to relax?
For me it’s always straight back to work! I work as an aircraft technician in the Royal Air Force and I work sort of as an instructor teaching the new aviation engineering airmen and airwomen coming through. For me there’s no sort of stopgap. I do this for a few months, then I work on the other aspects of everything: Train six days a week, run the team, things like that. So the training gap is maybe two and a half or three weeks off then I have to start getting back to getting prepared.
What is your race day like before you get on the track?
For me…we’ll get the sled ready a few hours before, make sure everything’s in place. I’ll have a track walk with our coach. This year we worked with An Vannieuwenhuyse, and that was a really good partnership along with Kelly and Sarah and we were able to bat ideas off of each other and bat ideas off one another. In that learning group you can really progress with different ideas and different people walking in.
We make sure the equipment is good, I get my sliding gear together. Once I get to the track we’ll check everything over one more time to make sure things are good.
Then it’s getting myself a space in the changing room, which is sometimes a tricky thing to do! You have to find a little space for yourself and have your little area. That can change though, given the number of people on the World Cup. In St. Moritz I’m sitting right next to Friedrich who was going right after us…I had the track record briefly! But it’s times like that when you think “I’m meant to be here” and it’s a little relaxing.
When you get to the World Cup level for the first time and you look around the changing room and see guys like Friedrich and Lochner, and you’re the sled right before them, what’s that like?
It’s definitely a little bit of an aura for us. In St. Moritz we were on the truck going up with Friedrich’s sled…seeing those guys after watching them on TV for years, there’s an appreciation for how they’re performing and you look at them and say “That’s where I want to be.” There’s an aspect of “Can I compete? Can I be here?” and see what we can do, and prove ourselves really. Because as the new guy everybody’s looking at you to see where you line up, and you can surprise people sometimes.
What’s been your favorite meal on tour?
What happened a lot is that we’d end up in some kind of Circle K. They’re all over in Norway and the Scandinavian countries. It’s probably not the most healthy food…but after the first Europe Cup race where we got the wider podium [4th to 6th] we went to Circle K as a celebration to say “Yeah we’ve done it!” and that was a really joyous moment. Especially with how the food is in Norway, it’s generally quite expensive, so to get yourself a decent burger as a reward is quite good!
What’s your favorite thing at the Circle K?
There’s something called the Super Burger and it’s like a double or triple patty, cheese, onions, mushrooms, a little spicy sauce with some chips! Obviously with bobsleigh nutrition is great, but being able to weigh in within reason…we can be a bit loser at times if we need to be!
Do you listen to any music or anything when you’re warming up?
I don’t! I don’t listen to any music, the calmness in my thoughts and going through the motions of my warmup and things like that is what I do. That’s where I probably differ. I’m a pretty gentle, relaxed bloke anyway. If I get too excited that’s where I can make a mistake down the track.
Some folks stick to themselves, other folks want to chat with people before the race, where are you on that spectrum?
I’ll have a little chat with people for sure, the familiar faces and that. I think I’ve built a pretty good relationship with people on Europe Cup, it was really good when I got back to the sport after my injury was a lot of “Good to see you back!”, and that was comforting.
So I’ll have a bit of a chat with people. If you’re first off though you have to be straight tin the game, really, and make sure we’re ready to go. I think the difference in World Cup is that there’s a camera on you, where as with Europe Cup you can tuck yourself away and hide away a little.
If you weren’t sliding, what do you think you’d be doing with your free time?
I’d probably dedicate it to something else! I like to think I’d probably be rich or married with kids somewhere or something! The sacrifice for the sport, especially over the last few years, has been pretty massive. You’re always working toward that dream and the choices you make always have an affect…but I’d probably be a little higher up in my normal job and have been promoted a few times and that! Probably more financially stable is the best way to think about it!
What has been your toughest sliding sport memory?
I’d say the injury probably covers that. Because of the injury, having that setback, the position where I am within Team GB gets me knocked down a little. And when you’re dealing with that you’re trying to overcome a bit more of a deficit without having the top crew and that sort of stuff. So those are the biggest challenges. Obviously the financial side of things and sponsorship as unfunded athletes…fortunately I have the support of work where I’m time-supported and can still be paid, where some other sliders don’t have that opportunity where for three or four months they’ve saved up everything for this. For me to keep the team going is definitely tough.
On the flipside, what is your happiest sliding memory?
The most recent one would be the first top-six I got in Lillehammer [Nov. 30, 2023 2-man], that wait to accept the medal for it. I had a small tear…and really had to keep myself from crying just because of the emotion from everything I’d had to go through to get back to that point.
And then the World Cup debut for me and Alex [Cartagena]. I’d brought Alex into the sport, he’s an RAF athlete as well and we’d never had an opportunity to slide together. During that time, after the result in Sigulda, that’s what really pushed it forward for us.