A BLAENAU Ffestiniog man who had never sat in a bobsleigh until two weeks ago has put in a sterling performance in his first world cup event.

Brian Roberts, who is paralysed from the waist down following a motorcycle accident over 20 years ago, spent last weekend competing in his first Para Bobsleigh World Cup Race on the Olympic Bobsleigh track in Lillehammer, Norway.

Having only sat in the bobsleigh for the very first time two weeks earlier, Brian put up a very good showing by finishing 14th in the Saturday event and 13th on Sunday.

Para Bobsleigh World Cup competitions are run as two different rounds on each day of the World Cup event. Each competitor gets two run each day and the combined time for both runs decide the final standings each particular day.

“On my first run on Saturday my helmet began to steam up half way down the run which was most annoying,” said Brian.

“The corners come at you at the blink of an eye one after the other so any blemish on your sight of view is a major drawback. My helmet had been okay throughout the previous week’s training but it was markedly colder on Saturday and unfortunately it caused me a major problem on the first run.”

Despite this, Brian was in 15th position after the first run. He managed to sort out the helmet issue for the second run and improved to be 11th fastest. His combined position at the end of the day was 13th out of some 22 competitors.

“The bobsleigh had been running well on Saturday” said Brian, “but, even so, I hoped to get more out of it for Sunday so I worked hard for that hour sanding the blades vigorously to smooth over the blemishes picked up on the solid ice on Saturday’s runs and I also checked the alignment for I had suffered a little bump on the final corner on Saturday.”

The hard work paid off for on his first run on Sunday Brian recorded a time of 7th fastest!

Unfortunately the second run was again marred by a steaming up helmet on the final few corners and he reached the finish line in 14th. The combined time for Sunday’s runs put him a final position of 12th overall. Not bad at all for a first outing and Brian and his team mate, World Champion Corrie Mapp, were both very pleased with this.

Brian will compete next in the final round of this year’s IBSF World Cup competition in St Moritz on 14 and 15 February and his final event of the season will be representing Team GB at the Para Bobsleigh World Championships in Lake Placid, USA on 30 and 31 March.

The GB Para Bobsleigh team receives no funding so Brian has to bear the cost of travelling and competing himself.

He has been fortunate enough to receive some sponsorship from the St Moritz “Lucky Horseshoe” bobsleigh team but the costs of travelling and competing are quite immense so friends have set up a Crowdfunding page to help Brian in his endeavours.

This can be found on the internet by searching for ‘Brian Roberts World Cup Para Bobsleigh Racing Fund’.