(August 2, 2021) – For our ninth athlete profile of 2021 (and the 31st in the “Getting to Know…” series) we chat with 2018 Olympian and Belgian Bullet An Vannieuwenhuyse. While having both the shortest first name and longest last name on the IBSF World Cup tour, An has scored 20 top ten finishes with a best finish of fourth (twice). She’s a Junior World Championship medalist finished 12th in her first Olympic Games.
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Slider: An Vannieuwenhuyse
Team: BEL Bobsled
Home track: Königssee
Hometown: Gent, Belgium
Sponsors: Mom & Dad
What do you consider your favorite track and why?
I think like a lot of people, it’s Königssee. It’s a beautiful place to be, there’s great hotels and it’s really just like coming home while on tour. Everyone is friendly, we know where everything is, there’s good training facilities and everything.
As for the track itself, I like that it’s a shorter start and a highly technical track. You get up to speed really quickly, so if you’re a bit behind at the start it’s a nice track to catch up to people on. It’s so technical…going through the straightaway is so nice when you can nail it.
When you come out of S4 do you know you’ve nailed it?
You definitely know when you didn’t nail it! When you go out with the right pressure you can feel it. In my last couple of runs in European Cup I tried to sneak in between the walls where everyone usually does the two taps. I thought “Okay, a lot of the men are doing it, I want to try it and shoot through it!” it’s REALLY nice when you go out straight and you can sneak your sled through, one inch on either wall it feels amazing!
I have some other favorites too. I really like Pyeongchang, too, in part because it’s kind of technical. You also have that “kind of straight” that you can try to shoot through. I’m proud that I was able to do that, thanks to Elfje in part who was there for the homologation of the track and was able to figure it out then. She was so nice to explain it to me before we went to the test event pre-games and we made it a little competition to see who could shoot through it the most, which was fun! I was the first one to do it on the test event in training which got the attention of a lot of coaches! Every time I’d go through that section I’d see a million iPads going through watching me trying to figure out how I did it!
I also really like La Plange as well. I know the brakemen don’t really like it because it’s a lot of pressure and it’s a hard track to slide on. But I really like the profile of the track and how technical it is. It’s not the hardest track, but it’s got some tough combinations and a lot of places where you can lose a lot of time. I don’t love the long, long start, but I really like sliding there. I wish it would be on tour more often.
Do you feel like at La Plagne you’re not subject to other sliders having a “home track advantage” because you all don’t slide there very often?
It’s true. We have a far more equal number of runs on those tracks. It’s the same with newer Olympics tracks, we had the same experience in Pyeongchang and will have the same experience in Beijing because we all have the same amount of runs there. SO it’s interesting to see who can learn the tracks the quickest and can transfer their knowledge of other tracks into a new track or a track we don’t go to as often. It’s definitely nice to be somewhere where there’s no real home advantage!
Where’s your favorite town on schedule to visit?
I think Königssee, because it’s like coming home for me. I’ve been there so much and I’ve slid there so much, I get there and I know where everything is for training and where the good pizza place is and where the good food is and where you can get a drink! I love the hotel that way stay at and all of the people know us, and they’re all “It’s so good to see you again!” It’s just so much fun to get back to these people and see them year after year.
I also really like Innsbruck and Igls. I love that it’s so close to the city and when you go training there on the running track outdoors in town, it’s just such a wonderful view with all of the mountains around you while you train. And it’s really nice to have this city on tour because most of our tour is smaller towns and villages.
I really like Sigulda, too, because it has really great training facilities. It’s a rough track and a long trip to get there and it’s a lot of things that we don’t really like, but when we get there it’s so nice to have a good gym, a good indoor running track and it’s all really cheap there too. You can get some good food there if you look around, too! So Sigulda is on my list as well. We went there a lot with our previous coach because we were coached by Latvians from when I joined to 2011 until 2018, so it’s a long time. We’d go there for push camps a lot of the time because they’ve also got an ice house there. So we went there for a bunch of weeks and when you’re there for push camps it’s really fun because you don’t have to slide the hard track! As soon as sliding gets in there it became a lot harder on us. I’ve spent probably 20 weeks out there, which is a long time for sliding…probably even more if I counted all of the push camps and sliding weeks…so it’s a little bit like a second home. But now with Tom [Delahunty] being British and he doesn’t like Sigulda at all, we haven’t been there so much. But it’s a little mixed feelings about it there!
You’ve been injured on and off since Pyeongchang, what has gone on over that time?
After the last Olympics I took a long trip and was out for three weeks. It was a lovely holiday! When I got back I moved out of my parents’ house and into my own place, so there was a lot of things going on, and I didn’t train for five to six weeks until I was settled into my place. We lost our coach, he didn’t continue with us after Pyeongchang, but our federation told us to just focus on training and they’d figure it out. So all we had to do was train. And since I was so motivated to do better than I had in Pyeongchang…it was great to get my goal of a top 12 in Pyeongchang but I wanted to do more and work harder and push myself to get to that next step. I wanted a top eight in the Olympics, I wanted to get consistent top sixes in World Cup and contend for medals, and I was just pushing myself in training. It was all I was focusing on, and I’d go train twice a day and was pushing myself hard and it was going great for the first couple of weeks.
Then in the end of June we had some testing and I didn’t perform as well as testing as I’d hoped to. All the work I’d put in in training wasn’t paying off, and I felt really tired and emotional and it didn’t work. My doctor checked my bloodwork and it wasn’t looking very good, and he said I needed to be really careful and take a step back because I was right on the edge of going into overtraining. I took a step back, but it was still too much and by that time we were halfway into July. My bloodwork and everything came back that I was fully into an overtraining state. So I had to pull out of training for a full month from half of July to half of August. It was super frustrating, because once you’re in that overtraining state it’s so hard to just sit there and not train. You know that training would make it worse, but not training isn’t helping you any either. The season was approaching really fast as well. Halfway through August my bloodwork was a little better so I could begin training again and I could train twice a week…which is ridiculous for a professional athlete to only train twice a week. We’d continually check bloodwork then go to three trainings in a week, and then check again and by this time it was into October and I was still in overtraining.
I was tired all the time and I was sleeping all of the time. Really between any session I was just in bed, and I was a very boring teammate that year! I was lucky that during that season my girls pulled me through. My brakemen were great that year, Sara [Aerts] was exceptional as she always is, but that season she really saved my whole season. I was driving quite okay, it didn’t affect that, but physically I wans’t fit at all. I hadn’t done any training in the summer so it was very hard to get that season over with. And even though I didn’t get to train much during that season, driving-wise I was still pretty okay because Sara was so good in the push.
Even that season after though I still needed monthly checkups and it was back to basics: Three trainings a week for all of April, then in May it was four trainings and so on. We really built it up so by the beginning of the next season I was in a pretty normal training routine, but only with eight per week which isn’t so much for a professional athlete. I imagine most bobsledders do a lot more sessions in a week. So we were handling everything really carefully and making sure I don’t skip any steps, and now after three years of struggling with this overtraining I’m healthy again! It’s still something we need to check on, because it’s something that will probably be in my body for the rest of my career. I still need to focus some time on recovery and make sure that I’m handling my training volume. I don’t train as much as I did before the previous Olympic games, so I have to focus on quality work. It’s been great this summer, I’m feeling healthy and I’m getting PBs again for the first time in four years! It’s great to feel like I did prior to all of this and I sometimes wonder what would have happened had I not gone into overtraining. But it’s good to be healthy again, it’s the worst kind of injury. I wouldn’t wish it upon anyone…if you rupture an achilies you know it’s going to be long and tough, but you can do rehab and work to get better. With overtraining all you can do is wait.
Belgium doesn’t have a very long history in bobsled, how did you get involved in the sport?
I got a Facebook message from Elfje [Willemsen], she was there from the TV show that was put on in Belgium that was put on a few years before. In 2007 they made a documentary to see if it was possible to get into an Olympic sport in a short period of time. So a couple of scientists sat down with some television people and looked to see what sport they should try, and bobsled seems like it’s a good transitioning sport to get someone from another sport to put them in a bobsled. They figured it was done in other countries so they should be able to do it here, and they decided it was easier in women’s bobsled than it was for the men because it’s a newer discipline. So that’s where Elfje started, and she got to the Olympics in 2010 which is incredible to get there in three years from not knowing a sport at all!
After that a couple of her brakewomen either retired or wanted to become a pilot themselves, so they needed to expand the team and find new people, and that’s how I got a message on Facebook based on my results in track and field. She saw those results and thought I might be a good fit for the team and asked if I’d be interested in trying out. So I did tryouts and some physical tests and they said it looked promising so I could come train with them that summer and see if I’d be actually good at pushing. After a summer of training I went with them to Sigulda to the ice house and did an okay test. I wasn’t the fastest girl at that point but by the time we started the season pushing a real sled really clicked for me and I got to be Elfje’s brakeman right away, and I got to be brakeman number one which was really surprising for me because I was the youngest girl they’d recruited! So I got to do my first World Cup as my first race! I think it was a good thing because it didn’t really surprise me…there were cameras and stuff and I wasnt used to that because I never really got to that level in track and field.
So I did okay and I was a brakeman for basically the whole season with Elfje. I did world championships pushing for Eva [Willemarck], because I was and I felt like my shape went a little bit down and she had gotten better, so she deserved to be on the number one team. I pushed Eva in World Champs, which was an incredible experience, just coming into a team thinking maybe I’ll be good enough to join them. When I was younger I watched the television program and I always thought “this looks so cool, it would be so awesome if I could do that. But I’m not fast enough…I’m not big enough…”, so when I got the message from Elfje I thought “Hell yeah I want to try out! I want to try something new!”
At the end of the season I thought “This has been incredible, from watching a documentary and thinking that it seemed cool to getting to slide in the World Championships in my first year…it was just amazing. It’s also because Belgium is a smaller country and I guess the competition in a German or American team is a lot higher, to get into World Champs in your first season you just have to be at such a higher level. So I’m lucky that we’re a smaller team, but so proud that I got into it and now here I am!
Before bobsled you were a track athlete, did you have a favorite event?
I was mostly a hurdler in the 100 meter hurdles. I did a little bit of everything, especially when I was younger. I had done heptathlon before but I developed pretty severe asthma, so I was okay in the early events but by event six and seven I was kind of screwed over! I also did long jumping, triple jumping, just the explosive stuff: 100 meters, 200 meters, anything like that. I don’t really have a favorite event because I started athletics when I could walk. Both of my parents are athletics coaches, so I’ve been on a track since I was two weeks old, I grew up there, I played in the sand pit. I just grew up there, so it’s something it’s something that’s in my blood and something that’s still my first love, so I love everything about it. People often ask me if I miss it, and I really don’t. I love watching it, but definitely they say your first love is your biggest love…and I think I might be the exception of the rule because I love bobsled more than I do athletics.
Have you been watching the Olympics?
Oh yeah! In between trainings I’ll be watching everything that I can. I bring my iPad to training just to quickly check in to see what they’re doing! I’m a total Olympic fangirl!
Do you have one in particular you’re watching?
If I had to pick one, probably the heptathlon or decathlon. It’s so nice to follow these athletes for two days and perform in so many different events, I have the utmost respect for those who can do it at the highest level!
When you’re not training/racing, what do you like to do to relax?
I basically am very lazy when I’m not doing stuff! I think a lot of athletes want to give a big sophisticated answer, but I think we’re all pretty lazy! We have to rest in between training, and that’s really important. I try to spend time with my niece and nephews. My godson is five years old now, so I try to spend as much time as possible with him on my rest days. He’s getting a little bit older and realizes that I’m not around in the winter, and I want to be there as much as I can in the summer since family time is very important to me.
I also do yoga classes twice a week. I do a daily meditation…I’m a very emotional person both in happiness and sadness, so to get my frustrations and emotions of the day in line I do some meditation. I watch some Netflix or Disney+, sometimes I read a book…I’m not the biggest reader but sometimes when I get hooked on a book I’ll do nothing but read!
What are you watching on Netflix?
Virgin River! It started off well and it kind of lost my attention. But now I’m finishing it because I started it! Also, Teenage Bounty Hunters, but I only watch that with the team. We always pick one show to watch to watch during training camps and we can only watch it together. So we can’t watch that at home by ourselves, only together, and we really are enjoying that!
Monobob will be an Olympic sport this year, what has that transition been like?
Monobob…I know the rules are put in a way where a lot of people have to do it, but since I’m from a small nation and I’m probably the only person from Belgium who’ll be qualifying a sled, I’m not required to do it. I can qualify my two-man sled without doing monobob, since it’s based on the two-man ranking…[long pause]
So you can have the scoop here, I won’t doing monobob anymore! I don’t know that any o f my fellow competitors are like “Oh yeah! She’s out of monobob!” I was behind everyone anyway!
It’s very different driving a monobob compared to the two-man sled and I think that was pretty obvious this season. I didn’t get a lot of training time, I literally got two training runs in St. Moritz and then raced a World Cup race, and basically did the rest of the season like that: Two training runs, race a World Cup, two training runs, race a World Cup. I didn’t even get 20 runs in that. World Championships week we got some more training runs in it. It’s very very difficult to drive. It’s such a different beast. In Königssee and Igls it was kind of getting into it, and seeing what the differences are, and by Igls it was two runs that looked like runs where I was controlling the sled and just not all over the place and everywhere you don’t want to go. But then we got to Altenberg and it was freezing cold and I think that when I look back at it, St. Moritz and Altenberg were both difficult because it was so cold and the ice was so hard. The sled is so light that it’s even worse to drive. If it’s normal conditions and not too cold it’s doable, but in cold conditions it’s just awful.
The pilot in me doesn’t want to give up; I want to drive it more to understand it more and find a better way to sit and balance the weight. I think there’s a lot in how far you’re sitting or balance the weight, but within 20 runs you can’t find that position. I don’t have any teammates also driving, I don’t have something like the Germans or Canadians where they have three girls and can test different seating positions and everything. I didn’t have anyone to discuss this with. My coach is also totally new to monobob, and we couldn’t find the solution to be successful. I’d love to do another season to find another way to drive it, but my main goal is to perform in two-man and I know that my best chance to perform well is in two-man as well. Also, having to prepare a second sled, a second set of runners, an extra race day…it’s a lot on three girls. I was very lucky that my brakemen wanted to help me, because it’s not their job but they still helped me with prepping material. It’s just a lot to do this with three girls…the men have to do this too but they have five people. We had to do all of that work with three girls and it just takes a bit toll when you’re a small nation and don’t have mechanics or anyone else helping you around. So with all that considered we decided to focus on a good two-man result. We get some extra rest, get to be more fresh on race day, so let’s take advantage of all of those things and not waste time and energy on monobob this season.
I’d like to do it, but I just really want to do well in two-man…so that’s kind of our decision and I’m feeling pretty okay with it!
Do you have a go-to favorite meal?
It doesn’t really matter to me, as long as it’s tasty!
Where do you find it easiest to find some good food?
In Winterberg we have a really good hotel and they always take care of us. A lot of the places are always taking really good care of us. There are some places where it’s a bit harder and we don’t have the amount of food or taste of food we want, then we try to go find places. I think everyone knows about the dinner place in Altenberg and stuff like that, we find solutions! I’m not a very picky eater, so it’s okay, I make it work!
Do you have a favorite trip or anything you’ve taken outside of the tour?
After the 2018 Olympics I want to Australia for ten days with my grandfather and then another ten days by myself. It was a crazy trip to do that! My grandpa has traveled to over 80 countries in the world and he’d never been to Australia before and it’s something he had always wanted to do. So back then he was like 85 or 86, and he couldn’t do it alone. So we decided after the games we’d go there, and that’s something I won’t ever forget. He’s the one who gave me the travel bug. He used to take all of us grandkids on trips: When we were six we’d go on a one-day trip somewhere close in Belgium, then when we seven years old we’d go two days to Paris, then eight three days to London and it went longer and further away. So we went to St. Petersburg, Rome, Athens…we actually did a two week trip to the western United States…we traveled a lot with my grandpa and to be able to take him with me to Australia is a trip I’ll never forget.
Do you have any pets?
I don’t! I live in an apartment and I’m not allowed to have any pets right now! But I want a dog!
What kind of dog?
I would go for a border collie or an Australian shepherd, but both are very active and need a lot of space so there’s no way I could do that now. But one day when I retire and get a big place with a lot of green, absolutely!
You’ve done some work on commentary with Martin Haven, how have you enjoyed that?
It was weird at first! I was quite good friends with Greg West and he’d done some commentating before. He wasn’t in Sigulda that race weekend when I did my first race announcing, and he said that John Morgan wasn’t coming over to be the second commentator and I should just tell Martin that I want to do it! I thought “oooooh, I don’t know about that.” At one training Martin came to ask some questions and I told him I’d been down the track in Sigulda a lot and I know the track very well, so if you need a commentator I’d be happy to do it! He was like “I’ll send you a message”, but he probably wasn’t sure because English isn’t my native language.
I was really nervous my first time. I got a message from Greg afterward and he was like “You’re so shy, you have to speak up!” And most anyone who knows me knows I’m not a very shy. So now when we’re in the booth Martin and I have good chemistry, I know when he’s going to talk, he knows when I’m going to say something. He already feels when I want to explain something about a curve and I know when he wants to get into the timing or something about one of the athletes. It’s just really organic and I just really love doing it! I love watching sliding sports, I love watching the men slide as well. I learn a lot from watching it so closely and I think it makes me a better driver to watch it all very closely. But now when I’m not in the commentary booth I’m still like “Oh, you missed that one, you did that right…”
I try to not be disrespectful for other people’s driving, because you know how that person has slid in training and you know where they’re coming from if it’s their first time on their track or something. You try to be very positive, and when Friedrich wins everything it’s very easy to know what you’re going to have to say! I really love doing it and I really hope that next season will be somewhat normal and I get to do it again! Maybe I can do monobob, but it’ll be tricky since it’s all of my fellow competitors and I need to be nice to them!
I’ve even gotten some complements from people I really respect. Pierre Lueders came up to me one day at a training session at a crossfit in Innsbruck where the Chinese team was training. He was like “You’re doing commentary right? You’re doing a really great job!” and I was like “OH MY GOD PIERRE LUEDERS SAID I’M DOING A GOOD JOB!” Thorsten Margis came up to me one day and was like “You’re doing commentary again?” and I’m like “Yes…” and he goes “Good job…” and he looked so serious but it was really nice! I really like it and I hope I can keep doing it…maybe if Martin is looking for a definite partner for after my career then maybe I can just be a regular on the broadcast!
What has been your favorite sliding sport memory?
There are so many! This is difficult to pick..I think when we qualified for the Olympics…I cried my eyes out. I was there with Sophie [Vercruyssen] and we had to wait a while after we finished. At the time we were the second sled and we had to watch all of the other second sleds. Martina Fontinave was the other second sled we were competing against for the final spot. She did really well in St. Moritz in her first run, and if she’d moved up a couple of spots she could have taken our spot. When she finished and didn’t move up we were sure that we would get the spot. And at that moment I just started crying, just like in the movies how people react when they get their lifetime goal. So that was an amazing feeling!
Sliding-wise, my fourth run in the Olympics is something that I will cherish forever. It was my best run…we were at the start line and there were a bunch of other Belgian athletes and Sophie’s family was there and everyone was all hyped! I was like “YEAH! This is why I’m here, this is what I want, I want to represent!” and all of the pressure fell off. I was like “Just do it! You know how to do it, just go get it!” And I drove my best run of the Games and went up from 16th to 13th, and then eventually 12th after the Russian busted…so to move up a bunch of places and get to be in the leader’s box for three runs was amazing! If you want to pick a race where you’re in the leader’s box that’s the one! It was just amazing though, I did everything in that run that I wanted to do. I knew it was a fast one, and I was like “we’re going to move up Sophie!”
When you got to the last two right handers at the end of the course dd you knew you’d nailed it?
Yeah! That last 16 Curve right into the finish sometimes you slam the wall, and I just wanted to get that one right. As soon as I duck down all low, and we didn’t hit the side wall I thought “YES! I did everything right! Finally I did it!” It was my fastest time of the whole race and I just knew it. I think it was one of the Koreans who went after me and she’d dropped a half second so I knew it was a good run.
And if I can pick a third one, our bronze medal on Junior World Championships! It was so unexpected, the day before we told ourselves everything is possible and the usual pep talk. Something in me told me I could be third or eighth, but on training I’d never beaten all of those girls. After the first run we were in fifth, but it was still just a couple of hundredths to third. I thought “we could still do this!” and that second run wasn’t a perfect run but it was good in all of the placed it needed to be: It was good in four, good in nine, good through Kreisel. Everywhere I had to nail it I did, I was a junior and the first year I drove Altenberg. We moved up one spot, and we’re getting dressed…it’s not like there’s cameras and stuff, but my family and everyone was there. The announcer there gets all excited there and they’re saying “they’re losing time…” and I thought “we’re going to do it!” It was the first time I’d ever medaled. And when we found out it was going to be in Altenberg, I was like “OH NO, I NEED TO LEARN ALTENBERG!” But in the end it ended up being such a great decision because it’s become such a great track for me.
Looking at the rundown, you beat Maria Fontanive, you beat Mica McNeill, you beat Kati Beierl…
I’d never beaten those girls before! My mom was there, my dad was there, my grandparents were here…and my grandfather who I’d never seen cry before was bawling! My mom came over and said “I’ve never seen your grandpa cry before! This is the first time I’ve ever seen him cry!” if you can do that as a granddaughter to make your grandparents that kind of proud it’s just a great feeling!
What has been your hardest memory in sliding?
Black Friday in Whistler for Team Belgium. World Cup in the 2017/2018 season, both Elfje and I crashed and it was a big deal because it’s an Olympic season and you need points to qualify. Elfje got points because she crossed the line. I got points too because I crossed as well, because you always do there, but I was like 23rd and last because I crashed so early.
We were all broken, we’d crashed in training, we’d crashed in the race. Brakemen were broken, sleds were broken, it was just tough and one of those days where you wanted to go home and cry. I had a concussion, the brakemen were black and blue, and it was one of the days where you just don’t want go back. But then we went to Königssee and we love Königssee!
Question from John Daly (USA skeleton): Do you have a hair care routine? How often do you get your hair done? Do you worry about what it looks like when you take off your helmet on camera?
This is such a typical John Daly question! My hair care routine: I wash it every other day, but sometimes every day when I have big trainings and it gets really sweaty and greasy. I use a regular shampoo and conditioner. I got my hair dyed blonde for the first time! It was a first because I turned 30 this year and decided the hell with it, I’ll go blonde! I’m proud that I didn’t get a single grey hair before I turned 30, but now I beat it with the blonde and now if I get grey nobody will see it.
I usually go to the hair dresser once every two to three years. I usually get really long hair then get it cut really short and donate it to a breast cancer foundation who makes wigs out of the hair you donate then sell them. But now that it’s dyed I can’t donate it anymore. But since I’ve dyed it I need to take care of it a little bit more.
I honestly don’t worry about how it looks when I take my helmet off because I braid it and it stays really well when I braid it, it’s my race hairstyle. So John, braid your hair and you won’t have to every worry again!
Bonus content from An:
I love Ashleigh Werner and that I absolutely miss her! I haven’t seen her since the season before! She is my very best friend in the whole bobsled world, and probably one of my best friends in the whole world period. I wish her all of the love in the world and I want to see her on World Cup this season! She’s just a great pilot and she’s going to KILL IT this season! We’ll kill it together. She’s the greatest, and way too good for this world!
