Canada’s best bobsleigh athletes were in the spotlight this week at the Whistler Sliding Centre, feeling the eyes of the international teams in town for the designated training weeks upon them as they take to the Whistler track.

Pilot Kaillie Humphries said the Canadians came to slide in only the second week of the two-week international training stint in to solidify their approaches, and see where they stack up against the rest of the world, without giving the opposition too many glimpses of how the Canucks are handling the famously fast and technical course.

“They’re watching us like hawks. They have video on us. They’ve got everything,” said Humphries, who captured one of the two World Cup silver medals she won last season at the Whistler race.

International teams and athletes have aired some complaints about a perceived lack of access to the Whistler track, but several of the Canadian bobsledders firmly rebutted those notions at a media session on Monday (Nov. 2).

Helen Upperton, the pilot of the Canada 1 sled that finished fourth at the 2006 Olympics, said she’s heard whispers about the complaints, but she thinks Vancouver Olympic organizers (VANOC) and others involved in the decisions have been more than fair and cooperative in ensuring other countries have access to the Whistler track for training to produce great racing at the Games.

“I think it’s a bunch of garbage, actually, because they’re getting more runs than we got in Torino, because the venue wasn’t ready in time, and the Italians beat me for a medal by five hundredths of a second,” Upperton said. “When you host an Olympic Games, you have a home-field advantage. It’s the same for every country.”

Legendary Canadian pilot Pierre Lueders, the Olympic gold and silver medallist and winner of 98 international medals in his career, said he understands attempts to lobby for more runs, but the treatment has been no different than in past years, and the Canadians worked with what they had in Turin and didn’t complain.

The Canadians will indeed have taken more runs on the Whistler track than their competitors by the time the Games roll around, but Humphries said she feels no guilt, since the rest of the world does the same.

“I think it’s great that Canada is finally turning around and standing up for ourselves. We have a reputation of being nice, and it’s kind of annoying. It’s really nice to have an advantage and stand up for it and use it, because the rest of the world does,” Humphries said.

So, as the new World Cup season dawns, many of the Canuck bobsledders say they’re feeling fast, fit and eminently comfortable on the Whistler track. Canada 2 pilot Lyndon Rush, who pulled off a fourth-place finish in last season’s two-man World Cup race in Whistler, said he truly feels like it’s his track, and the Canucks’ familiarity with the future Olympic course does breed comfort.

“This is my track, it feels like. I really like it. I have a soft spot for it because I was here for the homologation of it. I was one of the first sleds to ever go down,” he said.

With the help of two speedy new sleds, a strong crew — with Olympic silver medallist Lascelles Brown, Chris LeBihan, Dan Humphries and Bret Bresciani named to slide with him — and confidence in his driving, Rush has a simple goal for the World Cup season.

“I want to win. Really. I haven’t won a race before, and I really want to win a race… I think we’ve got the formula,” he said.

Amanda Stepenko, the Calgary-based pilot who is making her triumphant return to the World Cup circuit this season, sounds equally excited about the season ahead. To make the World Cup team, she won all three nerve-wracking team selection races against contenders for the No. 3 pilot slot, and she’s aiming for top-six or top-eight World Cup finishes to try to get a third Canadian sled into the Games.

“Everyone is in tip-top shape and ready to rumble, but so am I,” said Stepenko, whose top World Cup finish to date is a sixth-place result in Lake Placid in 2006. She quit her job last September and dedicated herself to training this summer, earning personal-best finishes in all her physical training and working on her mental strength.

Upperton is on the mend after a rib injury made racing painful in the second half of last season, though she started off by winning gold in two of the first three World Cup races.

Though her ribs still feel a bit sore while sliding, she had a great summer of training, and in her return to sliding in Whistler earlier this month, she said she “thought how nice it is to bobsleigh and not be in so much pain, because it actually makes it fun again.”

David Bissett, Neville Wright, Justin Kripps of Summerland and Olympian Ken Kotyk will be pushing Lueders this season, while Upperton, Humphries and Stepenko will be backed by the powerful Canadian contingent of brakemen: Shelley-Ann Brown, Jenny Ciochetti, Heather Moyse, Amanda Moreley of Surrey, Heather Patterson, Veronique Fortin and Sabrina Notarangelo.