Corie Mapp 'extremely proud' after winning Britain's first bobsleigh world title in 60 years
It has been sixty years since Great Britain tasted world championship gold in bobsleigh, when Tony Nash and Robin Dixon won gold in St. Moritz in 1965.
But on a sunny February day at the very same track that Nash and Dixon won their gold medal, former Household Calvary soldier Corie Mapp sought to end Great Britain’s world championship gold medal drought.
The IBSF Para Bobsleigh World Championships was the one title that was missing from Mapp’s trophy cabinet.
After a strong first day, where he clocked the two fastest times, Mapp could only manage the fourth fastest times in his third and fourth heats, but it was just enough to clinch the gold medal, a career first for Mapp and a first for Great Britain in six decades.
“It’s a hell of a high to end on for the season, I’m extremely proud of everything”, he said.
“I think we set ourselves some pretty steep goals at the beginning of the season, and to actually see them manifest and materialise is pretty awesome”, he added.
A veteran of the conflict in Afghanistan, where Mapp lost both of his legs in an IED blast in early 2010, he also tasted success prior to the world championships, where he sealed his third-career overall World Cup title, where he finished on the podium in six of the eight rounds in Lillehammer and Sigulda.
He said: “Lillehammer went as good as anyone could’ve expected it, to come away with six podiums in the first six races and three of them wins, it was just a phenomenal effort from everyone.
“Sigulda is a beast, that is something that is already in the works for next season, we didn’t go as well as we would’ve liked to there.
“It’s just one of those situations where we’ve got to just figure it out, we’ve got to go and do the work.”
Para bobsleigh is not yet included in the Paralympic programme, with the International Paralympic Committee already ruling out the sport being included in the 2026 and the 2030 games.
But despite that, Mapp and his fellow competitors are not giving up hope that their sport will one day be included in the Paralympics, as well as chasing the extra financial support that may come with that.
He said: “Not just me, but it would mean the world to all of us as para bobsleigh athletes because we’ve been doing this since, well some of them since 2012 and 2013, I’ve did it from 2014.
“So for all of us it has been a long haul, it’s been a big, big push over the years and a lot of sacrifice.
“Hopefully in the end, we will get to where we need to be, we will get the support we need and hopefully organisations start supporting grass roots sports a bit more, that’ll be a big help.”
As for what’s next for the newly crowned world champion, Mapp has no intention of hanging up his helmet anytime soon.
He said: “That’s the beautiful thing about Paralympic sport, you can go on until your body says no.
“At this point, my body still says yes so, I’m not going to say when, if that makes sense.
“For now, I don’t have an end date, I’m going to go on for as long as I can.”
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