BURSTAdam Scott didn’t expect his athletic path to lead him headfirst down a sheet of ice at nearly 100 kilometres an hour, but the first time he climbed off a skeleton sled in Calgary last summer, the political-science student felt something click.
“I got up out of the sled and I just was like on cloud nine,” Scott told Black Press Media. “It felt like I was flying.”
That moment helped steer the 21-year-old away from soccer, the sport he’d played for 18 years, and toward one of the most specialized, least conventional athletic avenues in Canadian sport.
On Nov. 19, the Surrey product was officially named to the Canadian Skeleton NextGen program, one of 10 men and six women selected nationally.
Scott is in his fourth year at the University of Victoria, majoring in political science with a minor in economics.
He grew up playing soccer on the mainland, visiting Victoria with his family, and dreaming about eventually wearing Vikes colours.
“In Grade 6, I remember studying the 2015 Canadian election and thinking I wanted to study politics and go to UVic and play soccer,” he said.
“I battled a lot of injuries, everything from pulled muscles to broken bones to concussions,” he said. “At points it was a pretty rough go.”
That’s when the idea of a new athletic ambition arose.
He first entered RBC Training Ground in March, which is a program that aims to provide resources to young athletes with Olympic ambitions, not expecting much to come of it.
But his testing results caught the attention of Bobsleigh Canada Skeleton coach Kevin Boyer, who emailed Scott in May and invited him to a summer camp in Calgary.
Scott didn’t hesitate. “I may as well not pass up on this opportunity,” he remembered thinking.
Once he arrived, surrounded by elite coaches and a tight-knit group of athletes, he knew he had found something different.
“I fell in love with it. The team is just some of the kindest, most engaged, competitive but amazing people I’ve been around,” he said.
Skeleton is, for the most part, a late-entry sport with a steep learning curve, but Scott has embraced it.
The first time he slid from corner ten in Whistler, he hit nearly 100 kilometres an hour.
“You kind of have to love the speed,” he laughed. “It really is the greatest feeling in the world.”
And despite the perception that skeleton athletes simply lie still on their sleds, Scott was quick to point out how technical the sport really is.
“People think you’re just laying there, but truly it is a very complex sport with the steers and the physics and how the ice reacts,” he said. “The best in the world make it look like they’re doing nothing because they’re so good at it.”
This winter marks Scott’s first full season in the sport, training at the Whistler Sliding Centre and building toward his first major target: the Canadian championships in March.
After that, the offseason will be split between Victoria and Calgary before he aims for the North American Cup circuit next November.
And while Scott insists he isn’t a natural adrenaline seeker, he knows exactly where he wants this journey to lead.
“One hundred per cent, the Olympic Games in 2030 or 2034 is my goal,” he said.