Sprinter Ryan Bailey Might Make The U.S. Bobsled Team

Sprinter Ryan Bailey Might Make The U.S. Bobsled Team

​UPDATE: ​According to Fox Sports, Bailey won the preliminary push competition today. His next step to making the U.S. bobsled team is competing at the USA

Aug 26, 2016 by Dennis Young
Sprinter Ryan Bailey Might Make The U.S. Bobsled Team
​UPDATE: ​According to Fox Sports, Bailey won the preliminary push competition today. His next step to making the U.S. bobsled team is competing at the USA Bobsled & Skeleton National Push Championships, which are next month and inexplicably in Canada. Our original story appears below.

According to reports from Nick Zaccardi and the U.S. Bobsled and Skeleton Federation, sprinter Ryan Bailey has an excellent chance at making the American bobsled team. Bailey ran a wind-legal 9.93 and wind-aided 9.89 last year, but was hampered by injuries this year and only ran 10.36 this year, and got eliminated in the first round of the Olympic Trials.

The injuries that hampered Bailey on the track apparently didn't slow him down in bobsled tryouts. He scored 741 points in the combine; whatever that is, it's more than everyone else scored. On Saturday, Bailey will compete in the preliminary push championships--a way for athletes transitioning into bobsled to qualify for the bobsled national championships.

Per Olympic expert Zaccardi, the last male Olympian to make the Summer and Winter Games was hurdler Willie Davenport, who won the 110m hurdles in 1968 and then made the bobsled team in 1980. Bailey didn't make this past Olympics, but he anchored the second-place men's 4x100m at the 2012 Olympics that was later disqualified for Tyson Gay's doping.