Todd Hays was a man of almost no words Friday, but his silence spoke loud and clear.
Hays had talked to the media through most of the Winter Olympics, even after a mediocre first-day performance in the two-man bobsled left him in fifth place last Saturday.
Friday in the first two runs of the four-man competition at Utah Olympic Park, the American recorded the fastest times in both heats for a total time of 1:33.26. That gave him a nine-hundredths of a second lead over Switzerland’s Martin Annen and Germany’s Andre Lange.
Afterward Hays told an Olympic media liaison: “We have to concentrate on [Saturday’s] races. I feel great. This is a four-heat competition, and we have two heats left to go.”
And after that elementary math lesson, he was gone.
This sudden shyness was understandable, if only because U.S. Olympic bobsled competitors have proved repeatedly that they lose focus. If Hays ever forgets that, two of the guys who sit behind him remind him. .
Brakeman Garrett Hines and push athlete Randy Jones were on Brian Shimer’s sled in 1998 in Nagano, Japan, when they missed a bronze medal by .02 seconds after the sled lost speed right before the finish line. And Hines was Hays’ brakeman last Sunday when they missed a bronze medal by .03.
Those misadventures stretched the U.S. men’s Olympic bobsled medal drought to 46 years. With a somewhat comfortable .38 lead over fourth-place Christian Reich of Switzerland, Hays, Hines, Jones and Bill Schuffenhauer appear set to end that dry spell, but Hines has learned not to count on that.
“Even though we’re excited and happy with our finish today, we know it’s not over by any means,” he said.
The 32-year-old Hines, who lived in Chicago until he was 9, competed in football and track at Southern Illinois. He currently lives in Sanford, Fla.
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He was so upset after just missing a medal in 1998 he quit the sport for a year and then switched from Shimer to Hays.
“I want it real bad,” he said. “It means a lot of different things.”
One of them, he said, is that he and Jones would become the first African-American males to win a Winter Games medal. Vonetta Flowers of the U.S. became the first African-American athlete to win a Winter Games gold medal when she served as brakeman for Jill Bakken in the women’s bobsled Tuesday.
“To win any medal, let alone a gold, would be a big accomplishment for both of us,” Hines said.
Five-time Olympian Shimer and his crew of Mike Kohn, Doug Sharp and Dan Steele, were fifth in 1:33.65, 0.30 from a medal despite producing the 17th-best start in their first run and the 12th best in the second.