What does it feel like to go 80 mph down an icy track?

“It’s one of those things you can describe but until you feel it, it doesn’t click in your brain,” said Bree Schaaf, Team USA Bobsled contender for the 2010 Olympic Games in Vancouver, Canada. Schaaf will be speeding down those icy tracks later this week when she returns to Munich, Germany to compete in another pre-Olympics trial.

Bremerton’s own Schaaf was home for the holidays at her family’s house overlooking the water.
“Having so much on my plate, I needed a mental break,” she said.

Among her favorite Christmas gifts was a GPS which she and her bobsled brakeman agreed was “the best Christmas present ever.” Why?

“My brakeman and I both have the worst sense of direction!” Schaaf admits, explaining that a nine-hour trip would often take them twelve hours.

Schaff originally started racing on ice when she followed her older brother, Tim, to a driving camp for the “skeleton” in 2002 after watching the skeleton event’s first appearance at the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City. The skeleton is a sport where the participant lies belly down and slides face-first down the track. She achieved a World’s Cup season at the sport before switching to bobsled — much to her mom’s relief.

“Skeleton got to the point where I felt like I wasn’t improving. I wasn’t learning anything because I couldn’t see where I was going down the track.”

Bobsledding offered her a different perspective. The move turned out to be in her favor, and she is excited about attending her first Olympic Games in February. And what drives her is her love of the sport.

“For a women’s sport, it’s really rare to find a sport that requires so much speed and strength,” she said.

She trains year-round, does weight-training and explosive workouts in order to build up the weight and strength needed for speed and control of the sled. One news commentator commented on how unusual it was to work hard to gain weight when most women her age are dieting to lose weight.

Bobsledding is a sport known for risk. Schaaf admits that she is a risk-taker, but actually sees it a different way. “I see something I really want to do and I think to myself, I can do that. And I go ahead and do it.”

After the Olympics, what might be next for Schaaf?

“It’s impossible to see anything past the Olympics,” she laughed.

But somewhere down the line she’d like to be a sports commentator. “I’ve always been into sports. It would be great to see the games — and,” she added, “people would be forced to listen to me.”