US bobsled federation reeling from 3-time Olympian Todd Hays’ injury-driven retirement

Bobsledder Hays to seek further injury evaluation

Three-time U.S. bobsled Olympian Todd Hays will meet with a neurologist to further evaluate the severity of bleeding in his brain and determine a course of treatment.

Surgery isn’t necessary at this time, a positive sign for the 40-year-old from Del Rio, Texas. Hays has been told the injury could heal within three months, although he will have to take plenty of precautions in the coming weeks to ensure no setbacks occur.

Hays retired from bobsledding late Monday after being told that what was originally diagnosed as a concussion was actually an intraparenchymal hematoma, otherwise described as bleeding into brain tissue. Doctors told Hays that “additional trauma to a healing brain … may cause irreversible damage.”

With that, his quest for a fourth Olympic team came to a sudden end.

“This isn’t how I wanted to end my career, and I’m devastated because I feel like I’m letting my team down,” Hays said Monday night in a statement released by the U.S. Bobsled and Skeleton Federation. “There are three guys in my sled that were counting on me to give them an Olympic ticket. Now I can’t do that.”

Push athletes working with Hays aren’t out of the Olympic picture just yet. The U.S. will still try to get a third sled into the Vancouver Games, with pilot Mike Kohn set to drive in America’s Cup races at Lake Placid, N.Y. this weekend in an effort to get world ranking points. Kohn will then head onto the World Cup tour, joining U.S. drivers Steven Holcomb and John Napier.

“Todd wants us to get three sleds in,” USBSF CEO Darrin Steele said Tuesday.

Members of the U.S. World Cup team learned of Hays’ diagnosis and decision around the time they awoke in Europe on Tuesday. The World Cup tour continues this weekend in Altenberg, Germany.

“It’s a huge shock,” USA-1 driver Steven Holcomb, the reigning world four-man bobsled champion, said in an e-mail to The Associated Press.

Hays has normal neurological function, and will continue to be monitored for the next few weeks. It’s even possible that he could be cleared to slide again in the future, although Steele said he does not expect Hays to launch another comeback bid.

“It’s the same kind of injury that can happen in a motor vehicle accident if you have a really bad hit, your head hits the steering wheel or something like that,” said Dr. Eugene Byrne, the USBSF’s Chief Medical Officer. “Tiny vessels inside the brain break, and you get a little collection of blood in the brain itself.”

The crash came last Wednesday on a foggy, rainy day on a track in Winterberg, Germany, during a World Cup training session. Hays was in his four-man sled when he lost control. None of his three sled pushers were injured.

After an overnight stay in a German hospital, USBSF doctors decided to bring Hays back to Lake Placid, N.Y., for further evaluation, with hopes he could compete in an America’s Cup race this weekend.

That’s when the bleeding was detected, quickly sending shock waves through the federation.

“The crash was out of the finish curve coming into the braking stretch,” said Chris Fogt, one of the push athletes in Hays’ sled at the time of the crash. “We just came out of the curve too late, and he must have smashed his head on the short wall. I knew it was serious right away, it was definitely a hard impact.”

Said Holcomb: “I knew it was going to be more than a minor concussion. I’ve seen a lot of bobsled crashes and a lot of guys walk away pretty loopy, but I’ve never seen anybody look the way Todd did when they walked him to the ambulance.”

Hays first retired after failing to reach the podium at the 2006 Turin Games, then returned to the sport in 2008. He is one of the most-decorated U.S. bobsled drivers ever, with two world championship medals. When he drove a U.S. sled to silver at Salt Lake City in 2002, it ended a 46-year Olympic medal drought for American men’s bobsledding.

Hays won a World Cup silver medal in two-man bobsledding earlier this season at Park City, Utah, then strained his hamstring the next night in a four-man race. He rehabbed and remained in Olympic contention, and the race in Winterberg would have been his first time back on the World Cup circuit since the leg injury.

“I felt like the pieces were coming together,” Hays said. “As you get older you worry about injuries, but I kept my speed and strength and was able to compete at the highest level. I never expected this was how I would end my career. But again, my health, my family and my future are more important than a few more runs down the track.”