THE CANADIAN PRESS
CALGARY — Pierre Lueders was interviewed for the job of Canadian bobsleigh team head coach, but he’s happier to fill a role that’s more his specialty.
The country’s most decorated pilot aims to coach the next generation of drivers to more success than he had during his 20-year career.
Lueders announced both his retirement from competition and his new job as pilot coach for Canada’s World Cup and Europa Cup teams Thursday.
The 39-year-old from Edmonton drove Canada to an Olympic gold medal in 1998 and silver in 2006 in two-man bobsleigh. He also won eight world championship medals during his career.
"After 20 years in the sport, it was certainly time to move onto something else and give something back to the young athletes in Canada," Lueders said from Edmonton.
After the departure of Tuffy Latour for the U.S. skeleton team in April, Bobsleigh Canada Skeleton asked Lueders to interview for head coach.
Lueders says he did so reluctantly because it was too soon after being an athlete himself to start telling his former teammates what to do.
"Being an athlete four months earlier and all of a sudden being the head coach, I thought would be a little awkward," Lueders explained.
He and BCS decided Lueders was a better fit working with the country’s drivers. Lueders also says he turned down offers from other countries to coach their teams.
"Pierre raised the bar throughout his career and allowed Canadian bobsleigh athletes to believe they too can be Olympic champions," Bobsleigh Canada Skeleton CEO Don Wilson said in a statement. "I truly believe Pierre’s innovative driver development initiatives will continue to raise the overall driving skill level of the Canadian bobsleigh program."
BCS has hired Tom De-La-Hunty from Britain to be Canada’s new head coach. De-La-Hunty competed and coached in eight Olympic Games. Lueders knows him well from the World Cup circuit.
"He’d be a better candidate for the head coaching position because he has a little more experience with logistics and running teams," Lueders said. "I think it will be a good working relationship. I’m excited to work with him and he’s excited to work with me."
BCS also announced Duff Gibson, the first Canadian to win a skeleton Olympic gold medal in 2006, will take over as head coach of the Canadian skeleton team. He’s worked in the program as a developmental coach since his retirement.
Lueders competed in five Olympics and won 88 World Cup medals. He earned six overall World Cup titles in two-man bobsleigh and one in four-man.
He and brakeman Dave MacEachern won Olympic gold in two-man bobsleigh in 1998. Lueders and Lascelles Brown were silver medallists in 2006. Lueders’ sleds finished fifth in both two-man and four-man events at the 2010 Olympics in Whistler, B.C.
"Without the athletes behind me, I would have never been able to achieve anything, so it’s important to acknowledge those people as well and there’s lots of them," he said.
While Lueders counts his Olympic medals among his career highlights, winning the 2004 world title in two-man in Koenigssee, Germany, stands out for him.
"That was 13 years into my career," Lueders said. "It took that long to win a world championship. That was the best race I’ve ever driven. On that particular weekend, there was no stopping us."
Lueders had success internationally when Canada’s bobsleigh program was threadbare. Even after the 1988 Olympics in Calgary, there was little in the way of program continuity or support staff.
"If you had a massage therapist, that was a big deal," Lueders said.
"I take pride in the fact that I was able to compete at the highest level pretty much from when I did my first World Cup which we won in 1992. Whoever was with me as teammates, we were always in the top three or top five."
Lueders was a stern, occasionally flinty competitor who had a reputation for being hard on teammates. He says that was necessary to his success.
"When you are an athlete you have to be more selfish in a lot of ways because if you are not, you just get stepped on," he explained. "Sometimes I might have rubbed people the wrong way. It was to get the best performance I could. Sometimes people liked it and some people didn’t."
He intends to put that unyielding quality to work for athletes, so they aren’t worn down by bureaucracy or bad decisions.
"There were a couple of years there between 1999 and 2002 where we had some awful coaching that was a direct correlation to my performance in those years," Lueders said. "That’s something I’ll make sure, as a coach myself, that I never let kind of nonsense happen to the athletes.
"I’ll fight for the athletes on various tracks if people are trying to stiff them, people that are bending the rules from other nations, I’ll be there 100 per cent to defend the athletes."
Lueders lives in Calgary with his wife Sandra and their two young daughters. He was in Edmonton helping his parents renovate their home Thursday.
He starts his new job Monday when BSC hosts a national team development camp at Canada Olympic Park. The 2010-11 World Cup season opens Nov. 22-28.