BARRHEAD – It is official.
Barrhead's Melissa Lotholz plans to take another run at an Olympic medal as a bobsleigh pilot in both the monobob and two-person events at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milano and Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy.
Lotholz made the announcement at a March 22 open house she and her family hosted with the help of the Town of Barrhead at the Agrena's Charles Godberson Rotary Room. It was a way to say thank you to the community for their support while she was competing at the 2022 Beijing Olympic games where she competed in the two-person bobsleigh event with brakeman Sara Villani, finishing in12th place.
“I am planning to go to the next Olympics. If you look at who the medalists were in both the monobob and the two-person bobsleigh event, they were all pilots that have had at least 10 years in the driver's seat," she said, pointing to her former sleigh-mate Christine de Bruin, who earned bronze in monobob.
Lotholz was de Bruin's brakeman at the Pyeongchang, South Korea, Olympics in 2018. The duo finished seventh.
"She has been driving for 10 years now ... and she's not the only one. If you look at all the top drivers on both sides (two-person and monobob), they have been doing it for several years. Being a bobsleigh driver is one position in athletics where experience counts," she said.
Lotholz noted that she and Villani were the least experienced team in the competition.
"If I want to be part of that upper tier of drivers, I have to have that same level of experience," she said.
As for if she would contemplate competing beyond the 2026 Olympics, Lotholz said she doubted it unless Vancouver or Calgary successfully bid for the 2030 games.
"At that point, I would have been at it for quite a while, and I would probably be ready for a new challenge," she said.
Lotholz first joined the Canadian Bobsleigh Team in 2014, transitioning from track and field, where she was a 60 and 100-metre sprint specialist with the University of Alberta. For the first four years, she would compete as a brakeman, mostly for Canadian pilot Kaillie Humphries; she accumulated 17 World Cup medals, including two World Championship silver medals in the process.
Shortly after returning to Canada from the 2018 Winter Games, Lotholz decided to jump into the front seat. After spending two years as a driver, mostly on the North American Cup development circuit, she returned to the World Cup circuit and plans to be there again come the start of the upcoming season.
After taking a few more weeks off, partly to set herself up in Calgary, which is the base for the Canadian Bobsleigh Team, she will resume her training in earnest.
She also plans to come back to Barrhead, not only to visit family and friends but to tell her story to local school children.
"It is nice to share my journey, especially with the next generation," Lotholz said.
Sreepriya Prakash, a Grade 1 Barrhead Elementary School appreciated Lotholz speaking with the community.
"It's such an inspiring story," said Prakash's mother, noting Sreepriya was too shy to speak. "She was so excited to know Melissa was coming and when she learned that she was from Barrhead, her eyes just got so wide."
