FORMER Culcheth High School and ex Croft Cadet Alex Cartagena, who joined the RAF at 17 as a Mechanical Engineer, has recently become a member of the GB Bobsleigh team and is now an elite athlete and competing internationally.
Alex aged 24 has been competing in the European Cup consisting of two days of competition racing in Lillihammer, two days at Winterberg and finishing in January with two
days in Igls in Austria.
After the first day of competing recently, Alex (brakeman) and Adam Baird (Driver) competed for GB and out of 35 were 7th which proud mum Gill says “is amazing”
with the fastest speed of 126.08 km/hr and three of the top six being from Switzerland.
Alex is new to the sport and only got into a Bobsleigh approx 16 months ago after competing for the RAF in weight and powerlifting when he was identified as showing good
potential after speed trials initially for the RAF at Cosford and then for the GB Team which trains at the University of Bath.
He returned back to the UK a week ago and after spending a couple of days home went back to his day job as a surf craft mechanic for a few days.
He is now home for Xmas but travels to Igles on January 1 to compete on the 6th and then on to Germany for the last set of the European Cup season.
Gill added: “They were running at 6th and were leading in the run in Winterberg until the Bob turned over 20 secs from the end. It righted after 3 secs but they lost valuable time so dropped back to 20th. I was watching on a live link and you can imagine our reaction!! No real injuries, just ice burns which will heal. They will be going back with determination in the New Year and Alex continues his daily training schedule over the Xmas period.”
His team is now on the lookout for sponsorship after their best season so far.
They managed to get on 5 tracks and compete in four 2 man races and acquire themselves a world-class 2 man sled!
They aimn to go bigger and better, building the team in the off-season to 4 man-size (5-6 members).
The team got better every time they hit the ice and ended last season at the European championships with a 12th place finish in Konigsee !
For more details on sponsorship opportunities email [email protected]
