While northern New York is home to one of North America’s three bobsled and skeleton tracks, it has been 45 years since an individual from the region has been a member of the International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation’s executive committee. That changed in June when Saranac Lake native Tuffy Latour was elected to serve as the federation’s Vice President of Sport. Latour has spent more than 30 years working as an athlete and coach in bobsled and skeleton. Latour tells WAMC North Country Bureau Chief Pat Bradley there’s a number of issues he wants to address during his term.
Some of the subjects I'm tackling, there's been a big push and, you know, recently in the last, I'd say six years. I'm sure you've seen the women's mono-bob event. Is that something we need to do with our two-man sleds? Another thing is the traveling continent to continent. It's primarily a European based sport with all the tracks, a vast majority being in in Europe, but we have the three tracks here in North America and the two tracks in Asia, one in China and one in Korea. And the expense of getting those sleds from track to track is pretty high. So, what can we do to that aspect? Other things I'm tackling is just Olympic qualification criteria. Things are always changing within the IOC, so keeping up with what the IOC expects from us as an international governing body. Always looking to expand the sports. What can we do on the development side? Olympic season governance. Another thing is just what can we do to make our sports more exciting? We want to be able to grow these sports.
Well, Tuffy Latour, you did mention it's very European oriented and there has not been a North Country/Lake Placid representative on the board for about 45-years. Aand yet this region is very highly known for its bobsled track, training and competition. Why haven't we had a representative on the executive committee?
It's extra work, number one. I've got a huge passion for the sport, for both sports, bobsled and skeleton. But I've got family ties there as well. My grandfather was an Olympian in 1948, competed for the U.S. in the two-man bobsled as well as racing in the 1949 World Championships, which were the first bobsled World Championships in North America in Lake Placid, New York. So, I've got the family ties, but I also have just a passion for this sport to grow it and to get it out there to the world. I mean, especially in the United States there's so many different sports out there that our youth can go into and we're hoping to capture the excitement of the sports and bring those to future Olympians.
How important do you think a representative from this area, where we have the Olympic facilities, is and what kind of perspectives do you think you'll bring to the International Federation?
It's big for us because you look at what New York State has done in Lake Placid to update all of their Olympic facilities. All of their venues are world class right now and you can see that by the events that we've brought in over the last quad. Bobsled and Skeleton had their 2025 World Championships in Lake Placid. The year before that we had a World Cup. But what we're looking for is to consistently bring an event to North America, be it Park City, Lake Placid, or Whistler, Canada. Ideally, all three, because once you get over here, it's so much easier to travel around North America. You know what I'm trying to bring to it is just a different point of view, and that is we've had a lot of European leadership over the years, and there's certain challenges that North Americans and Asians have, i.e. if the complete World Cup schedule is in Europe. What I'm trying to do is have everybody really understand that there's challenges, financial challenges, as well as logistical challenges to getting to those events. Financially, you know, we're taking a huge hit before we even get on the ground in Europe. So, we want to spread that out so that the Asians and the North Americans have an opportunity to race on their home tracks as well. So, I'm trying to get that point across that we need to use all the tracks that we have throughout the world to keep this sport as strong as possible.
Tuffy, I understand that you won the position of Vice President of Sport by a 39-to-5 margin. What did that feel like? Were you surprised?
I was surprised. But I mean, I started coaching in 1998. I was an athlete before that. So I’ve built a lot of relationships over the years. I was a driving coach with the U.S. when I first started with the women's bobsled team and I moved into the men's bobsled coach role. Then I coached in Canada for three years with the Canadian men and women's bobsled teams. I spent 13 years coaching the U.S. skeleton team here in the U.S. and then I've been back with bobsled for the last you know three, four seasons. So, I just have built a lot of relationships over the years. I know a lot of people. I've just made a lot of connections,
And you have already started working?
Yeah, it’s been like three weeks now. There's a lot to tackle. The IOC are going to talk about our quotas for the upcoming 2030 Olympics. Those quotas will determine how many athletes we can send to the Olympic Games in 2030 and once we get those in, my plan is to have a strategy session to go over how we're going to fill all those quotas within both the men and women's ranks, and what we can do to grow our sport and make it a sport that people really want to be in.
Tuffy Latour will serve a four-year term on the International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation.
