| Personal information | ||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nationality | British | |||||||||||||
| Born | 2 September 1987 Lawrenny, Wales, United Kingdom | |||||||||||||
| Height | 1.93 m (6 ft 4 in) | |||||||||||||
| Weight | 115 kg (254 lb; 18.1 st) | |||||||||||||
| Website | http://www.brucetasker.com/ | |||||||||||||
| Sport | ||||||||||||||
| Country |  United Kingdom | |||||||||||||
| Sport |  Bobsleigh | |||||||||||||
| Club | GB Team | |||||||||||||
| Coached by | Chris Woolley Dominik Scherrer Peter Gunn Michael Khmel | |||||||||||||
Medal record
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Bruce Tasker (born 2 September 1987) is a British former bobsledder and track athlete. [1] He qualified for the 2014 Winter Olympics in the 4-man discipline. [2] [3]
Tasker was born in 1987 in Lawrenny, Wales. When young, Tasker was a talented athlete, which led to his joining the Carmarthen Harriers athletics club at the age of 11. [4] Specialising in the 100m, 200m and 400m disciplines, [4] he broke club records as a youth and won at both distances at several meets, including the Welsh Championship, where he won the 200m at Swansea in 2008, and the BUSA Championships, the 400m in Bedford in 2007. [5] In 2006 he was ranked as the United Kingdom's top under-20s athlete in the indoor 400m. [5] Despite this he failed to reach the top level of the sport and turned his back on sprinting in 2009. [6]
Tasker first competed for Great Britain at a competition at Loughborough, in 2006. [4] After graduating with upper second class honours, in 2008, Tasker changed events to focus on the 200m, but after winning only a U23 British bronze medal, his interest in athletics was waning. [4]
In 2010, while studying for a degree in Biochemistry at the University of Bath, he was introduced to bobsleigh by British racer John James Jackson. [1] He adapted swiftly to the sport and was part of the four-man team that came first at the 2011–12 British Championships held at Winterberg. [7] Tasker was also part of the four-man teams which represented Great Britain at the 2013 World Championships, coming in fifth [7] and the 2014 Bobsleigh European Championships, winning a silver medal. [8] He was also part of the four-man crew that finished second at the Lake Placid World Cup meeting in 2013. [9]
On the 22 and 23 February 2014, Tasker represented Great Britain in the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, in the four-man bobsleigh; racing in the first team along with Stuart Benson, Joel Fearon and pilot John James Jackson in GBR1. It was his debut Olympics. [1] GBR1 finished in fifth position, but in 2017 two Russian crews were disqualified for doping violations, pushing the British crew up to bronze. After the Sochi Olympics Tasker undertook training to become a bobsleigh pilot in the summer of 2014. [10]
In November 2017 at Park City, Tasker finished third in a four-man World Cup race alongside Bradley Hall, Joel Fearon and Greg Cackett. [9]
On 4 January 2018, he suffered a stroke, ruling him out of taking part at the 2018 Winter Olympics. [11]
After a career in which he competed at six World Championships and an Olympics, in October 2018 Tasker announced his retirement from competition. [9]
In March 2020, he took part in BBC1 cooking show MasterChef.
Alexandr Yuryevich Zubkov is a Russian retired bobsledder who has competed since 1999. Competing in four Winter Olympics, he won two medals with a silver in 2006 (four-man) and a bronze in 2010 (two-man). On 24 November 2017, he was found guilty of doping offences and stripped of his medals from the 2014 Winter Olympics.
The Jamaica national bobsleigh team represents Jamaica in international bobsleighing competitions. The men's team debut in the 1988 Winter Olympic Games four-man bobsleigh in Calgary, Alberta, was received as underdogs in a cold weather sport represented by a nation with a tropical environment. Jamaica returned to the Winter Olympics in the two-man bobsleigh in 1992, 1994, 1998, 2002, 2014; a women's team debuted in 2018. The team either failed to qualify or did not have a team during other Winter Olympics.
Dr Craig Keith Pickering is an English retired sprinter and bobsleigher. As a sprinter, he was based at the Marshall Milton Keynes Athletics Club; however, he also ran for the University of Bath and Newham and Essex Beagles. Following his retirement from professional sport Pickering became an academic researcher and gained a professional doctorate in sports performance from the University of Central Lancashire.
Nicola Minichiello is a retired British bobsledder who competed between 2001 and 2011. She won two medals in the two-woman event at the FIBT World Championships, winning a silver in 2005 and making history with a gold in 2009 partnering Gillian Cooke, to become the first British female bobsleigh driver to win a World Championships. Competing in three Winter Olympics, Minichiello earned her best finish of ninth in the two-woman event at Turin in 2006. This was also the best ever Olympic result by a GB women’s bobsleigh team.
Gillian Cooke is a Scottish track and field athlete and bobsledder. She was born and brought up in Edinburgh, and educated at George Watson's College. She began her sporting career in track and field with Edinburgh Southern Harriers. In 2001, she took fourth place in the triple jump at the Commonwealth Youth Games, and set a Scottish junior record for the pole vault. She set three Scottish senior records in the pole vault in two months in 2002, and was selected to represent Scotland in that event at the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester.
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Elizabeth Anne Yarnold, OBE is a former British skeleton racer who joined the Great Britain national squad in 2010. With consecutive Olympic gold medals in 2014 and 2018, she is the most successful British Winter Olympian and the most successful Olympic skeleton athlete of all time from any nation. She won the 2013–14 Skeleton World Cup, followed by a gold in the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. Yarnold was selected to be one of the two women skeleton drivers representing Team GB at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, and went on to become the first person to defend an Olympic gold in skeleton and the first British athlete to defend a Winter Olympic title. Yarnold set the track record for women's skeleton at the Olympic venue in the final heat of the race with a time of 51.46 seconds, beating Jacqueline Lölling's pre-Olympic record by nearly 1.3 seconds and her own first-heat record by 0.2 second. Yarnold was also the flag bearer for Great Britain at the Pyeongchang opening ceremony.
Great Britain, represented by the British Olympic Association (BOA), competed at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, from 7 to 23 February 2014. The British team was made up of athletes from the whole United Kingdom including Northern Ireland, whose athletes may have elected to hold Irish citizenship, allowing them to represent either Great Britain or Ireland. Additionally some British overseas territories competed separately from Britain in Olympic competition. A total of 56 athletes competed in 11 sports making it the biggest contingent that Great Britain had sent to a Winter Olympic Games for twenty-six years.
Joel Fearon is a British sprinter and bobsledder. He represents the Birchfield Harriers and he is recognisable in the National Trials for wearing a black vest and lycra shorts. His coach is Michael Khmel, who also coached British Sprinter Craig Pickering. His personal best for the 100m, 9.96 seconds, places him 5th on the UK all time list.
The four-man bobsleigh competition at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia was held at the Sliding Center Sanki near Krasnaya Polyana, Russia on 22–23 February 2014.
Lamin Deen is a British bobsleigh pilot and Grenadier Guardsman. He qualified for the 2014 Winter Olympics in both the 2-man and 4-man disciplines.
Dominic Edward Parsons is a British former skeleton racer. He won a bronze medal at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, and also competed at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. He retired from the sport at the end of 2019.
John Baines is a bobsledder who competes for Team GB, and a comms specialist in the Royal Air Force. His Olympic debut was at the 2014 Winter Olympics in the two-man and four-man bobsleigh events, participating as a brakeman.
Ben Simons is a British bobsleigher and former athlete. He qualified for the 2014 Winter Olympics in the 4-man discipline as part of Great Britain 2 team, behind pilot Lamin Deen, performing as the brakeman.
Rebekah 'Bex' Wilson is a British former bobsleigh brakewoman. She competed at the trials for the 2010 Winter Olympics, and the two-woman bobsleigh at the 2014 Winter Olympics.
Stuart Benson is a former bobsledder who competed for Team GB, and an avionics technician in the Royal Air Force. His competed at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi in the four-man bobsleigh, competing with John James Jackson, Bruce Tasker, and Joel Fearon, where they finished fifth. With the disqualification of both Russian bobsleigh teams who finished ahead of them, they officially finished third.
Edson Luques Bindilatti is a decathlete and bobsledder from Brazil.
Great Britain competed at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, from 9 to 25 February 2018, with 58 competitors in 11 sports. They won five medals in total, one gold and four bronze, ranking 19th in the medal table.
Mica Moore is a British women's sprinter and former bobsleigher. She competed for Wales in the 4 × 100 metres relay at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Scotland, and competed in the 2-women bobsleigh event at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
