Christopher Spring - Pilot
| Nickname: Springer | Favourite Book: Any of the Mr Men books by Roger Hargreaves Favourite Movie: Young Einstein Favourite Song: Too many to mention Favourite Band: The Arcade Fire, Pete Murray, Ben Harper, The Beatles, Coldplay, Xavier Rudd, The Killers, U2, John Butler Trio, again too many to mention Favourite Colour: Green |
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About Chris
Growing up on the Sunshine Coast in QLD’s south east, Chris had little aspirations in becoming involved in Winter sports, especially Bobsleigh. Instead, Chris was involved in numerous Summer sports including surf lifesaving, soccer, rugby league, cricket, and at the age of 16, concentrated his efforts on athletics, more specifically the 100m sprint.
At the age of 18, Chris moved to Brisbane to focus more on his athletics career. Whilst in Brisbane Chris trained with athletes such as Patrick Johnson (Australian 100m record holder), Sharon Cripps (4x100m Commonwealth Games bronze Medalist) and Paul Dibella (2 x Olympian and World Championship bronze medalist). Although the training group was world class, Chris had trouble getting the results he was searching for. After 3 years of producing sub par performances, Chris moved back to his home town of Caloundra. It was the following season where things started to speed up for the young sprinter breaking the 11 second barrier in 4 consecutive races.
By the beginning of 2006, Chris had qualified for the National Championships which doubled as the Commonwealth Games qualifiers. Chris had drawn a tough heat alongside Australian record holder Patrick Johnson and was subsequently run out of the heats producing his slowest time in 3 years.
3 weeks later Chris moved to Calgary, AB Canada on a 1 year working visa. A year later, just as he thought his athletic career was nearing an end, he was hooked on the sport of Bobsleigh after watching the Canadian National Championships.
Chris began training with the Canadian National Team in early 2007 and hasn’t looked back since. In October 2007, Chris attended a week long driving school and learned the fundamental aspects needed to pilot a bobsled. Chris trained all Winter on the Calgary Olympic Park track with guidance from ex Australian bobsleigh pilot Robin Calleja.
After hearing that Duncan Harvey was also involved in bobsleigh as a brakeman, they decided to team up for the 2008/2009 season and Team Spring had formed. Chris hopes to one day compete at the Winter Olympic Games and be the fastest push team in the world.