Whitehall native tops national team

You are currently viewing Whitehall native tops national team

By Serena Kovalosky

Codie Bascue has been a rising star on the U.S. bobsled team, and after winning all four races in the national team trials, the 22-year-old Whitehall athlete is now the top-ranked bobsled driver in the U.S. who will compete on the U.S. team in the World Cup next month in Whistler, Canada.
“I shocked myself,” said Bascue, who is training in Lake Placid. “Going into the national trials, I knew I’d do well in Lake Placid, but I was surprised at how well I did in Park City.”
Bascue started sledding when he was eight years old when his grandfather started a bobsled program at Whitehall High School. It didn’t take long before Bascue began moving up the ranks at a rate that transcended his age.

Codie Bascue
Codie Bascue

“Codie advanced so fast, coaches didn’t know what to do with him because he was so young,” said his grandfather, Alan Bascue.
Since then Codie Bascue has been shaking up the bobsledding world, often competing as the youngest athlete against international bobsled veterans.
“Most of my career, my teammates as well as my competitors have been at least 10 years older than me,” Bascue said. “Growing up in that atmosphere helped me mature quickly.”
“I started so young, but working with these great athletes and learning from them has helped me progress,” he said.
Bascue enjoys talking about “the amazing parts of this beautiful sport that not everyone knows about.”
In his blog post on the Team USA Bobsled and Skeleton Federation website, Bascue explained how bobsledding is unique, “like the fact that you are flying down an icy slope at up to 90 miles per hour, wearing nothing but spandex, spikes, and a helmet inside pounds on pounds of metal and fiberglass.”
He described the point when he’s standing at the starting line with his team “getting ready to unleash all of the anger and frustration and crazy that we have been holding in up to this point.
“Once that light turns green and it’s time to go, it’s hard to keep it all in,” Bascue wrote. “Once you run forward and your hands hit the bar though, you let it all go and put all of that into pushing the sled as hard as you possibly can.
“But, as soon as you jump in the sled and your hands grab the D-rings,” he continued, “it’s time to get more focused than you have ever been in your life and focus solely on driving the sled fast and safe down the track.”
This is precisely what Codie Bascue loves so much about the sport of bobsledding.
“The fact that you get to go to both extremes as far as totally losing your mind and then going straight to meditation type focus is unlike any sport or situation that I can think of,” he wrote.
He acknowledges the support he has received from his hometown of Whitehall and the surrounding community.
“It’s overwhelming all the support I receive,” he said.
Codie Bascue is now in a good position to qualify for the U.S. Olympic team, but he’s just taking it one race at a time.
“I’m excited for what’s next,” Bascue said. “We’ve put in a lot of work and we’re ready!”