Former UK 100m record-holder Montell Douglas describes emotions and the background to her qualification for the Winter Olympics

Montell Douglas says she feels “completely overwhelmed, honoured and blessed” after being chosen to represent Great Britain in the Winter Olympics in Beijing in the two-person bobsleigh, becoming the first woman to represent GB in Summer and Winter Games.

“It’s been a journey for me and because we’ve had a number of men but no women do it,” she says. “It’s been great to represent women and that was something that I really wanted to achieve. So I’m blown away.”

By a strange coincidence the 2022 Winter Games are in Beijing, where she sprinted for GB in 2008.

Her career as an athlete saw her compete in the Olympics, two World Championships, Commonwealth Games as well as European indoor and outdoor championships. She gained a European under-23 silver medal at 100m, she was in the England 2010 Commonwealth Games gold medal sprint relay team and the GB team which was fourth and fifth in the World Championship relays (2007 and 2009).

What’s more, in 2008 she set a GB 100m record of 11.05 – running a wind-assisted 10.95 the same day.

In 2015 as her athletics career seemed to be stalling, she was asked if she was interested in giving bobsleigh a go. “I was essentially recruited by one of the coaches who was from an athletics background,” she explains.  “And he said to me that they were looking for bigger, faster, stronger girls – because the start in bobsleigh is so important.”

She had a successful transition and made the GB team for the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, but only as a reserve.

She recalled that the temperature for the 2008 Summer Olympics was up to 38C, whereas it was sometimes -26C in Pyeongchang. Athletes always warm-up well before sprinting, making it “a challenge to be overcome when you’re not used to sprinting in such cold temperatures. So you have to learn different ways to prepare your body and get ready.”

She believes that she has relevant transferable skills for her new sport: “I think I brought my tenacity. I do like to push myself. I like to learn new things and to apply them.  I ask: ‘how can I push this; how can I be better?’ When it’s late on in your career and you’re changing sports, you need to do this.”

Recalling her time as a sprinter she explained further: “In an elite 100m race, eight girls line-up but they’re different kinds of athlete – some taller, some smaller, some stronger – each with different attributes, not all of them would necessarily do well in a bob. For bobsleigh they want tall, strong, heavier, powerful girls who can move quickly. It depends what kind of athlete you are and what you’re bringing to the table.

‘I am tall but I have very long limbs. So it’s not just that I’m 5ft 10in, I have almost got 6ft 2in limbs. In some ways that’s a challenge to be behind the bob, which, for me, is very low but you have to work around things and find a way to get the job done.”

Bobsleigh is not just about raw speed: “I’ve gained 10 kilos compared to my first Olympic Games. I’m a lot heavier because you need the mass to move the bobsleigh and of course the weight is going to slow me down so I had to balance those components to ensure that my performance was still at the high level that it needed to be.”

She is not the only sprinter who will be in Beijing. Alexandra Burghardt, a semi-finalist in Tokyo 2020 in 100m will also be in the women’s bobsleigh competition for Germany.

You also, Douglas suggests, need a certain personality type for winter sports. “You do have to be a bit nuts to throw yourself down an ice mountain at 80-90mph!” she says.