4 weeks ago
10
Taylor Lawrence was a highly talented footballer, cricketer and rugby player as a youngster, but bobsleigh was "nowhere near a sport I'd ever thought I'd give a go".
That all changed when a military colleague spotted him playing in a rugby match and thought his build and speed would be perfect for the winter sport.
Lawrence, a serving Royal Marine, was offered the opportunity as part of his military duty and has never looked back.
He first stepped into a bobsleigh in late 2019. It crashed, but that did not deter him.
"I had no frame of reference of what I was getting myself into," Lawrence, 28, told BBC Sport.
"All of a sudden there was this almighty crash and I was wondering what was happening.
"We finally came to a stop and, to be honest, the sound was worse than the actual crash itself.
"We kicked ourselves out, dusted ourselves off and went back to the top and off we went again. It was an absolute baptism of fire."
Within a few weeks he had been fast-tracked into the World Cup squad, because of injuries to others.
And his career has moved as fast as a bobsleigh hurtling down a track at 95mph. He is considered one of Great Britain's best bobsleigh brakemen, having won 15 World Cup medals - including three golds - as part of the two-man and four-man teams.
In 2023 he was part of pilot Brad Hall's crew which won a first four-man World Championships medal in 84 years - and the team also made history by being crowned European champions for the first time.
Bobsleigh has strong military links and is one of the few winter sports where ethnic diversity is evident.
There have been very few black British Winter Olympians, but there has been representation in Olympic bobsleigh squads since the 1980s.
On the medal front, Courtney Rumbolt and Dean Ward were part of the 1998 four-man team which won bronze in Nagano, as was Joel Fearon, who won bronze with the four-man team at Sochi in 2014.
Lenny Paul was one of the first black British bobsleighers and a veteran of four Winter Olympics, but endured racist banter while first trying out for the squad when a coach questioned whether he could stand cold temperatures.
"If anyone ever said anything like that to me I'd say something about it, but that narrative and that assumption has kind of disappeared," said Lawrence, who stands at 6ft 4ins and weighs 107kg.
He is passionate about sporting opportunities being available for everyone, regardless of background.
"You don't tend to see a particularly diverse group of people across winter sports, but bobsleigh is one of those sports that does have quite good inclusion," he said.
"For myself, it’s not just showing people of colour 'look what I've done, you can do it too'. It's about everyone because there's a whole host of different people who haven't had the same opportunities I had growing up.
"I'm very fortunate for the military to allow me to do what I’m doing."
The four-man crew finished sixth in the Beijing Olympics in 2022, which was the best result of all the Team GB skeleton and bobsleigh teams who endured a tough Games.
When he first joined the squad they were not funded, but bobsleigh did subsequently receive £1.5m from UK Sport before Beijing. For the Milan 2026 cycle, bobsleigh has been awarded £2.8m after a £900,000 uplift in August 2023.
To put it into context, the powerhouse Germany teams spend £2m a year on research and development alone.
“We do the best with what we have," Lawrence said.
"The extra UK Sport funding has allowed us to look at different R&D bits, new two-man and four-man sleds, different aero parts etc.
"That costs a lot of money, but when you’re in a sport that is won by hundredths of a second, it's all those little bits that help."
The season following the Beijing Games was British bobsleigh's most successful non-Olympic year, but the start of Lawrence's 2023-24 campaign was delayed after Hall had back surgery. On his return, the four-man team carried on where they had left off with a podium in Lillehammer.
They are currently in Norway training before the season starts in Altenberg, Germany in December. The countdown is firmly on to the 2026 Winter Olympics.
The track in Cortina is still being constructed, which Lawrence said will pose a new challenge for the teams.
"The main thing will be who gets to grips with the track the quickest," he explained.
But he is bullish about Team GB's medal chances as they aim for a first bobsleigh gold since 1964.
"Obviously we want gold, but we will be looking for an Olympic medal," said Lawrence.
"Anything less than that and we'll come away disappointed because we know how good we are.
"We're competing against the same people day in and day out from the World Cup circuit so we know we can beat them. It's just having those stars aligned."
