Instead of ‘dashing through the snow on a one-horse open sleigh’ this Christmas,’ how about ‘ripping down the ice on a one-man open tray’?

Because while the rest of us will be opening presents, eating turkey and generally taking it easy over the holidays, one young Edinburgh based man, Iain Roberts, will be doing just that. 

For he is one of only a handful of people from these Isles who competes in one of the world’s most daring and exciting sports – bob skeleton. 

‘Bob who?’ you ask.  Yes, the name may sound trivial but be warned, skeleton is an event made for adrenalin junkies and thrill-seekers, and is not to be scoffed at.  In Layman’s terms, it involves rocketing down a steep and twisting ice slide, head-first, at speeds of up to 80 mph, on a rectangular sled not much bigger than a tea-tray.

So it is a sport that takes bravery in large doses.  Even a little bit of stupidity, some might say.  Using the same water-slide style ice track as the luge and bob-sleigh events (think Cool Runnings), the sport requires the explosive start of a sprinter, the reactions and awareness of an F1 driver and the dare-devil mentality of an SAS soldier. 

In other words, a top skeleton athlete must be Usain Bolt, Lewis Hamilton and Andy McNab all rolled into one.  Incidentally, in the mould of McNab, it all started out for Roberts at an army training camp, as he tells In The Winning Zone when we meet at a popular Edinburgh coffee room.

“The British Military run a camp in Norway every winter for the armed forces and I was offered the chance to go along.  I think they had four or five spots available, so I signed up.”

Roberts, 29, was initially attracted into giving skeleton a shot after finding he had reached an unsatisfactory plateau in pole-vaulting, an event in which he had been competing for five or six years, since he was 16.

“I wasn’t really satisfied with it, I didn’t really know where I was going and one of the things that was working against me in vaulting was my height. I am just under the 5 feet 7 inches.  But the thing with any sport is that you shouldn’t be held back by anything, because there are no written rules. But at the same time I was getting more and more injuries when pole-vaulting and it wasn’t even really fun anymore.

“I got a bit down, because up until then I had always thought if I trained hard enough and if I could stay injury free then there would be a chance of Commonwealth Games or something like that, and that was all I wanted.  It dawned on me that in this event it probably wasn’t going to happen.”

Salvation arrived in the form of an individual who saw an opportunity for Roberts in an altogether different sport.

“I met Adam Pengilly, who came up to Edinburgh through the British Skelton Association as part of their talent ID programme.  He used to Pole-Vault as well.  It was encouraging that suddenly there was this opportunity for me in sport.  It brought back memories of being five-years-old and seeing bob-sleigh on TV and thinking ‘I want to do that!’ 

“So I thought, why not!  I stayed in touch with one of the team.  Then I got the phone call saying that I had a chance to go to the training camp.”
 
Of course, it was only after he had signed up for the camp that Roberts realised what he had actually signed up for.

“I got a picture in my head of Britain’s Alex Coomber, she won a medal at the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics at Skeleton in 2002. Suddenly it dawned on me just how fast she was going and I remember my strides slowing to almost a standstill across the Meadows as I was thinking, ‘Oh, I am actually going to do it.’”

Roberts was an instant hit at the camp.  His athletic background obviously benefitted him, but he believes it was down to grit and determination to be the best that made him pick up the sport so quickly.

“I wanted it so badly.  I wasn’t happy with what I was doing and needed a break. I remember standing at the top of the track thinking, I have to make this work otherwise I am not sure what I am doing.
 
“It was a complete first timers’ camp, so I went into it with the open mind, thinking that I just wanted to have a shot and just get out of it with all my limbs still attached.  But by the end of the week I was really enjoying it and I was the fastest one down.  Six months later I was in the world class team and it is great.” 

Roberts’ personal geography runs in a similar vein to his sporting career, finding himself at juncture he may never have thought possible a few years ago.  Born and raised in Luton, once he dreamed of perhaps competing for England in track and field at a Commonwealth Games.

But now he isn’t representing England.  Nor will he be turning out in the blue of Scotland, his place of residence for the last few years as first an undergrad and then a PhD student at Edinburgh University.  No, Iain Roberts now dons the black of New Zealand, the country of his father’s birth.

"One of the clinchers was something he always used to say when I pole vaulted: 'If you get good enough, you're putting on black!'  I'm sure he would be proud either way, but representing NZL makes him smile."

It didn’t take Iain long to find his rhythm on the ice and by 2005 Roberts was competing at the highest level.  In his first year he was finishing 25 or 30 places down the field in World Cup events, but by the end of the 2007/2008 winter season he regularly finishing in the top ten.  Now he is aiming for a spot at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada. 

“I never thought I would be in a position that I would have realistic a goal to win an Olympic medal, but I do think that every athlete goes into a race wanting to win.   There is no reason why I can’t. 

“Last year I finished 21st in the World Championships. So 20 people beat me, but at the same time it was an event I didn’t expect to get to at the start of last season.  I wasn’t thinking of World Cups.  So to get there and finish 21st on a track that I didn’t know particularly well isn’t bad. 

“Then you go from that to thinking, well hang on, the Olympic track is a brand new track.    The Germans won’t know it, the Americans and Austrians won’t know it.  So you have that environment where all of a sudden it’s a level playing field.

“It kind of makes me excited and I don’t feel pressured.  I am in the position where I am nearly top 20, and if I can get to the top 15 then that puts me in a great position to go top ten.  If I get top ten then why not go for a medal?  There are a lot of things that still need to be done between now and then. I have started to believe it now.”

So keep your eyes peeled over the next couple winters.  If you see a nutter sliding down the snow on Arthur’s Seat head first over the Christmas Holidays, it could be Iain.  And if you see a New Zealand medallist in Vancouver talking with a British accent in 2010, you will know who it is.

RO
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