Taiwan’s first women’s bobsled team, known as “Ice Baby,” are training intensively in hopes of qualifying for the Milano-Cortina Winter Games from Feb. 6 to 22, less than two years after the team were formed.
The team comprise pilot Lin Sin-rong, brakemen Liang Yu-chieh and Lin Sung-en, along with physiotherapist Chelsea Yeh and manager Kang Ting-ning.
Lin Sin-rong is widely seen as having almost secured qualification in the women’s monobob and two-woman bobsled events after placing highly at competitions across Europe and North America.
Photo: CNA
Her awards include two silver medals and one bronze in the monobob, as well as one bronze and two fourth-place finishes in the two-woman event at the North American Cup, which ended on Jan. 11.
At a news conference yesterday, team members described the challenges of pursuing Olympic qualification with limited winter sports resources, including renting sleds from overseas and repairing equipment that was often in poor condition.
“We prepared our own equipment and tools, and the sleds were in much better condition after we used them,” Lin Sing-rong said.
Liang said the team also frequently had to adjust their combined weight before races, as the two-woman bobsled has a maximum weight limit of 330.5kg and the weight of rented sleds was often unknown beforehand.
Lin Sung-en, the youngest team member at 19, said she began training in bobsled just three months after switching from track and field.
Liang and Lin Sin-rong also started their athletic careers in track and field. Lin Sin-rong, 27, was previously a sprinter before switching to luge in 2016. She represented Taiwan at the Beijing Winter Olympics in 2022, ranking 31st in the women’s singles event, before moving to bobsled in 2024.
Liang was formerly a hammer thrower and holds Taiwan’s under-20 women’s hammer throw record.
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