Bobsleigh: Chuting for gold

Naila Hassan spares precious moments between police work and Olympic training to talk to CARROLL DU CHATEAU about the spills and thrills of the bobsleigh.

There is a note pinned to the wall near Naila Hassan's bed, making it the first thing she sees when she gets up at a quarter to five every morning.

The note reads: "Sleep for the Olympics, wake for the Olympics, breathe, eat and train for the Olympics."

Which is exactly what Hassan does.

Sitting in her Pt Chevalier home, impossibly long legs stretched out, stomach as flat as a board, and veins showing below the skin of her golden forearms, she tells of her desire to be the first woman to win a gold medal for the bobsleigh at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.

It's simple: this is the first time women bobsleighers have been included in the Olympics. It is one of the most demanding sports, physically and mentally, and Hassan wants to win for New Zealand. And yes, she loves the thrill of it.

Hassan props her feet on the table, bends her knees and demonstrates how you drive a bobsleigh.

"See, my hands rest inside my knees," she explains. "When I'm driving they need to turn just fractionally. It is just a very small, precise movement. So, if you're shaking or your heart's racing, it's impossible to perform or drive well."

Driving a bobsleigh down a chute of glass-smooth ice at speeds reaching 130 km/h requires nerves of steel. Which is why this extremely neat house is peppered with personal growth messages all intended to keep Hassan steady, physically and mentally.

"When I started sledding, I realised how mental attitude can affect performance," she says. "I used to rush round like a crazy thing, people used to find me tiring to be with, I was so wired. I could never have done this sport four years ago - I wouldn't have had the mental maturity. To be an elite athlete, if you can't get into physical optimal shape you can't get into mental optimal shape."

It is not as if Hassan is flaky. At 33, she is a police detective, specialising in corporate fraud.

"My job is fantastic," she says. "It challenges my brain and lets my body rest - so suitable for my sport."

And she's obviously close to her family: her two sisters and English-born mother (her Pakistani father died four years ago) live within 10 minutes of her house.

Her twin sister, Samina, has two young sons. Naila, on the other hand, has seven pairs of training shoes under the bed, a Swiss ball in the spare room, a laptop on the kitchen table, two cats and a dog and follows an exhausting training schedule.

Like many athletes, Hassan has followed several sports. She won a gold medal in the World Police and Fire Games road cycling race in Sweden, 1999, a gold in the 1997 Australasian Supercop competition (10 events over five days), and takes time out by mountain climbing (including scaling an 8000m Himalayan peak).

When she was shoulder-tapped to take on the bobsleigh she was hellbent on rowing for New Zealand in the next month's race across the Atlantic Ocean. Transatlantic rower Phil Stubbs, who died in a plane crash at Karekare nearly three years ago, was one of her best friends.

"I wanted to do it for Stubbsy."

But the excitement of the bobsleigh - and the lure of the Olympics - won her over. She recalls the unbelievable sensation of her first sleigh ride.

"Like I was scared," she says, laughing. "The rumble was like a 747. We started halfway down at the luge. I was expecting to go about 40 km/h and we did 75. And we got out at the end, and we just laughed, it was so nerve-racking.

"The start is 100 per cent physical effort. You shouldn't have anything left when you jump in that bobsleigh. Then the mental process takes over ... and it's huge ... a click of your fingers is as long as it should take to centre yourself."

Bobsleighing is an unforgiving sport. A small miscalculation with the fingertips as you go into a corner translates into coming out of that bend too high, meaning a poor lineup for the following bends and finally, as the errors and speed compound, "you try to over-compensate and get further and further out so by corner eight you're upside down".

"I don't think there's one time I've crashed and I haven't cried," she reveals rather surprisingly.

"I try to work out what I've done to deserve this. That's when I realise that setbacks are a benefit - because what they do is bring out the best in ourselves. So I analyse the problem, then renew my commitment and strengthen my resolve."

Despite the gleam of the Olympics, Hassan was unsure whether she wanted to take on the challenge. She had no experience, and prerequisites for Olympic qualification were tough. "We needed to do a minimum of five world cup races over three different tracks over two continents over two seasons."

Because New Zealand has no bobsleigh courses and neither she nor her brakeman, Toni Carroll, even owned a bob, Hassan knew she was attempting the near-impossible. Typically, she called on friends for help and came up with Brian Corbett, of the Fortune Corporation, who took her through a "purely business, unemotional, decision-making process".

And when the pros and cons were written up there on the wall, Hassan was convinced. "Clearly the Olympics is where it's at ... the ultimate for every sportswoman, every elite athlete's dream."

Within a year, she had achieved the near-impossible, becoming one of the top 15 woman pilots in the world at the 2000-2001 World Cup series.

How did she do it? First she checked in as the fittest athlete at the bobsleigh driver training school in Calgary, Canada, in February last year. Next she sold her $25,000 BMW and, with brakeman Carroll, set off on the European bobsleigh circuit, hiring bobs, staying in youth hostels, watching the others - and building up the runs.

"In 82 runs last year we crashed four times. For a first-year pilot that's amazing ... When we started out we were fourth to last [in the ranking]. And by Salt Lake City in February we came 15th and 16th - and that's unbelievable."

What this super-positive athlete doesn't mention until probed is that one of those crashes was at the World Champs in February, meaning she missed out on a world ranking.

Typically, Hassan used the setback to push herself forward. "I let the pressure get to me [when she crashed]. That's why I work with a sports psychologist now. I've no doubt we'll qualify this season ... the Olympic cutoff will be 15 sleds - we're right there."

The next hurdle for Hassan is getting together enough cash to start the whole process again next month.

"The Sports Foundation doesn't give us a cent, nor does the Hillary Commission - so we've got to raise our own money."

Time is short. Her three-woman team, now including Brisbane-based brakeman Tionette Stoddard, is booked to arrive in Calgary on October 7. Then comes the World Cup circuit through Germany, Austria and Calgary, training on the Olympic track at Salt Lake City - and then back home to Auckland for Olympic pre-training before Christmas. This time they have a coach, Canada-based New Zealander Ross Dominikovich, who will go too. "He'll be taking us - and the men - to the Olympics."

After last season's experiences Hassan is aware of the importance of decent accommodation where the athletes can cook the right food and have access to trainers, chiropractors, sled-maintenance people and all the other support that elite bobsleighers need.

Last year she raced a couple of substandard rented bobs, one of which caused her most dangerous crash. This week she borrowed $35,000 to buy her first bobsleigh.

"Last night an old friend called and offered to lend me the money," she says. "We'll meet the bob in Salt Lake City in a few weeks." She laughs a little dryly. "Now all we need is $128,000 for the rest of the campaign."

This week letters are fanning out to Fonterra (the former New Zealand Dairy Board), Vodafone, Lion Nathan and Ocean Bridge freight company asking for sponsorship in exchange for Hassan-designed staff motivational training and presentations - and the prospect of getting the company logo beamed out to 150 million viewers as Hassan and Carroll flash down the ice track.

Already Hassan's fitness regimen is well under way. She's up at 4.45 am for 20 minutes' meditation followed by a workout at the police gym in Cook St, followed by real work at the Central Police Station next door.

The afternoon session begins with a 40-minute nap followed by 1 1/2 and a half hours' training, a couple of hours spent organising the campaign, and bed at 9.30.

Then there is a blood test every two weeks to ensure minerals are perfectly balanced, no alcohol, severe restrictions on chocolate, $120 worth of vitamin supplements every month, and what looks like a terrifying diet taped on the fridge.

It consists of raw oatmeal soaked overnight in orange juice, lots of chicken, tuna and vegetables, carbohydrates in the mornings for energy, protein ("I even force myself to eat lambs' fry because it's so high in iron") in the evenings to help her muscles repair overnight, milkshakes made from protein supplements, bananas and flax seed oil, vitamins, including B12 - and the odd cup of coffee.

Despite the drive to succeed, there is a softness about Hassan. When she's away from home, her laptop opens, not with a bobsleigh, but with pictures of her dog and her two cats. When asked about marriage and babies she doesn't become angry like many other 30-plus athletes who have been plagued by such questions for years. Later, she sends me an e-mail. It reads in part: "Yes, I do sometimes miss the emotional comforts in life, but I don't think I could do what I do with a partner around. As all my friends say, I am a perfectionist. I have not yet found the perfect man in my life."

And what about those rare moments of relaxation? "My favourite pastime when I do have a day off training is bodysurfing at Piha [yup, winter is fine]. My daily relax on my way home from work and in the weekends is sitting at Bambina [in Ponsonby] drinking coffee and reading the paper.

"Sure, it's a simple life, but I love it and wouldn't change a thing."