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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Sport
Andy Bull in Cortina

‘No cushion, no seatbelt, no airbag’: the GB bobsledder who races with her eyes closed

Ashleigh Nelson poses at a Team GB media event in Edinburgh
Ashleigh Nelson has moved from the athletics track to the ice track. Photograph: Ian MacNicol/Getty Images

Ashleigh Nelson was never meant to be in the Winter Olympics. If you’d asked her 18 months ago where she expected to be competing this week, she would have told you she would be at the Utilita Arena in Birmingham running the 60m at the UK Indoor Championships, not standing at the top of the world’s newest ice track riding a £75,000 bobsleigh.

“I was tricked into it,” Nelson says. “You laugh, but it’s true.” Nelson got into it only after the GB bob pilot Adele Nicoll sent her a message on Instagram just after the Paris Olympics asking if she fancied giving it a go.

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