Febru


ar y 24,


2010.


.. (wa


s) th


d e


a


t y


h


a


t


ri E


P n


a c


0 ‘


3 f


u l


l


l


i


f


e


t d


h


e


r d


a e


m


h s


d ’ e


r i f


f t s


e an Oly m


r o


t Erin P


ac beca


m


p i c b r


dem


s teah h


dy ta


h t t a


w h


a x.


T t a pi re


si


ofe adl oe g


Olympic Bronze


medalist Canada II. Somehow, Pac achieved this ultimate of athletic moments despite suffering


a painful hamstring pull earlier that week. Only a few days away from her competition, she readily admits she thought all her dreams had been dashed. After eight years of preparation, this was not the way it was supposed to end. Along the way, Pac had her share of disappointments. There were the 2006


Winter Games of Turin, when she just missed making the U.S. team as a brakeman. There was her subsequent decision to continue her quest as


By Steve Raczynski Director of Sports Communications


It really all began when she was In kIndergarten.


Yes, kindergarten. It began to take fruition when she was a little further along in the world of


academia — some 15 years or so later — while attending Springfield College. It all came to a glorious and stunning conclusion eight years later — on


February 24, 2010, to be precise — the day that Erin Pac ‘03 fulfilled the dream she’d first formed at the ripe old age of six. That was the day that Erin Pac became an Olympic bronze medalist in women’s bobsled and, at the same time, an American hero. The Erin Pac saga is much more than what it appears to be. Hers is not just another overnight success story, but a story fraught with danger and perilous — and literal — twists and turns. Erin Pac became an Olympic bronze medalist when she


crossed the finish line for the fourth time in her bobsled, designat- ed USA II — traveling somewhere between 85 and 90 miles per hour, having successfully negotiated the infamous “50-50 curve”— at the Whistler Sliding Centre just north of Vancou- ver on a frosty February evening. It was on the very same track where a Georgian luger had been killed just days earlier. And it was also on the very same track where Germany II, in fourth place at the time, crashed just two slots ahead of Pac’s final run, eliminating that sled from Olympic competition. Driver Erin Pac had officially been paired with brakeman


Elana Meyers not long before the Games. Their combined time of 3:33.40 in four heats over two consecutive days was just 1.12 seconds slower than gold medalist Canada I, and only 27 one-hundredths of a second slower than silver


6


TRIANGLE 1 Vol . 82, No. 1


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35